


Run

by itsbeautiful



Series: Fabric of a Fragile Home [3]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Arguing, Branding, Broken Tea Cups, Comfort, Crying, Dark Will, Elias and Peter Reunited, Escape, Fighting, First Love, Flashbacks, Hannibal Loves Will, Hannibal and Will try to surprise Elias, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kissing, M/M, Makeup, Murder, Murder Husbands, On the Run, Panic Attacks, Post-Fall (Hannibal), Protective Hannibal, Protective Will, Reunions, Scars, Separation, Will Loves Hannibal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-03
Updated: 2017-03-11
Packaged: 2018-09-28 02:39:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10066796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsbeautiful/pseuds/itsbeautiful
Summary: ((Will risks going back to the States to find Peter and bring him home to Elias. (Takes place one or two years later after Chapter 151 of Transcendent Suffering.))Peter lunged forward, gun first.“Jesus Christ!” Will threw up both hands in defense, knife clattering to the floor and shook his head. “Peter! No. Peter! I’m not here to hurt you. I swear to—”“Ferme ta gueule, fils de pute!” Peter screamed, gripping the shaking revolver with both hands, tears staining cheeks.“Hey, hey…” The younger man thrust an upturned palm forward, head jerking back and slamming against the window as a cold barrel jammed against his forehead. “Calm the fuck down!”He suddenly heard the dial tone. Saw the cell phone lit up near the corner of a broken lamp. The faint voice in the background saying, 'hello, hello, are you still with me, sir? Sir?'





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bloody_Princess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bloody_Princess/gifts).



A voice shouted from the study. “I’m going.”

“No.” Another replied from the dining room. “You are not.”

“I’m going and that’s final.” An empty mug banged on a marble counter.

“My answer remains. You are not going anywhere.”

Wood creaked as feet pound across its gleaming surface, groaning louder and louder as they drew closer. Earl grey tea rippled in a blue and white hibiscus patterned cup on the oblong table. Newspaper rustled against long fingers sweeping absently across another page. The noise ground to a halt. An aggrieved snort demanded immediate attention.

“Do you wish to defy me and discover the consequences if you do?” Cold burgundy eyes peered over the corner of page fifteen. “I forbid it. That is the final word, Will. My word.”

The younger man glowered at him from across the length of the table, both hands planted wide on its surface.

“Are you—“ A bearded jaw clenched and unclenched. “—joking?”

Hannibal allowed his eyes to fall from the seductive twinge of a lip threatening to curl over teeth to the v of dark hair dipping below a pair of hunter green and black cashmere pajama bottoms. He returned his attention to an article he had been rereading about the current economic climate, or rather its demise, for the last twenty minutes. The newspaper was snatched out of his hands. It came apart mid flight in pieces and drifted to its final resting place on the oriental rug. The younger man marched around the table and loomed above. Hannibal sighed and folded hands across a heather grey vest, looking up expectantly at the disturbance for an apology.

“You forbid it?” Fresh damp curls fell forward. Will gripped the back of the dovetail dining room chair and growled, “Really? Forbid me, a grown fucking man, your husband, from doing something? _I’m going_.”

“It is far too dangerous,” The older man returned dismissively, sweeping up a cooling cup of tea and giving it a swirl. “I will go. You will stay.”

“Not a chance in hell. _I_ forbid it, old man.”

Hannibal stared over the rim of his teacup, mouth ajar, and gave deep consideration to bending Will over his knee.

“The discourtesy spilling from your mouth…” He sipped tea for a moment. It needed a splash of milk or honey. “…is going to deserve nothing less than the back of my hand in a moment.”

A face flushed bright red to the tips of ears. Will snapped the cup away, choked down contents, and pushed it to the other end of the table, inserting himself between it and Hannibal. He checked his watch. It was nearly one o’clock in the afternoon and far too early for an argument. Nostrils flared the tantalizing scent of fury clinging to soft skin. He scented salty arousal just beneath it. Maroon locked with lightning blue in challenge.

Hannibal slipped tortoise shell buttons loose on his vest then rolled starched white dress sleeves up his elbows. Heat bloomed in his belly as pupils dilated. He slid one hand up a rigid thigh, following the other, before sitting the younger man on the table and pulled legs open.

“Cute.” A bare foot jammed his chest and pushed him roughly back in the chair. “Stop trying to change the subject.”

The older man stifled bruised laughter, wrapping both hands around a foot, digging thumbs against a calloused arch. He enjoyed these kinds of games. Where he pursued, Will pretended he would deny him. They both knew they would give in to whatever the other wanted in the end. It was, after all, mutually beneficial for the other’s enjoyment.

He pressed again as if to prove his point. Will groaned, head falling forward, loosely gripping rounded oak corners for support. With a pleased twitch of lips, Hannibal kissed the crown of a head and continued massaging. If there was any justice in the world their current conversation would diminish to nothing except writhing moans as he licked Will wet and open on the table before leaving them both spent with rug burn on their knees.

“Out of the two of us, you know I’m less recognizable,” A strained voice grumbled. “I should be the one to go.”

Sliding thumbs up a tense calf, Hannibal began to work his way up, material stretching over his hands and murmured, “If it is a matter of discretion, I will have Daniel fetch him.”

“First off—nnn right there—I want to stop owing that man favors.”

The hint of jealousy in his reply almost made Hannibal smile. Almost. It had slipped his mind on numerous occasions to mention to Will—in spite of the story of how they met—Daniel was just a heterosexual friend from his past. He had also failed to correct the inaccurate assumption Will came to of that not being the case.

He pressed until a _soleus_ muscle tightened, spasm loosening it. The younger man had been dutifully preparing the house for a coming winter, spending far too much time on ladders and roofs. It was taking a toll on his body. An appreciative moan puffed the top of his head. The older man swallowed a rumble of want, cock twitching in response. He found no greater pleasure than caring him. Feet settled on his knees as Will drew closer and he reached for the other to give it equal attention.

“Secondly, if Peter is as skittish about strangers as Elias says, what do you think is going to happen if we send a group of men to get him? Huh? He’ll run. We might not ever find him again.”

He was not caring for Will well enough if the boy was still speaking coherently however.

“William…”

Will covered a hot palm sliding its way up his inner thigh, sighing. “You said yourself we can’t tell Elias until we know Peter wants to see him. And there is no fucking way I am letting him travel by himself to the States. I can be in and out of there in a matter of days.”

“And I suppose by this perfected train of thought, I am to do just that where you are concerned?” Hannibal withdrew his hand and tipped his head to the side, upper lip lifting displeasure. “Is there some distinguishable difference I am unaware of?”

“I can handle myself.” Will answered, cupping cheeks before placing a chaste kiss on lines furrowing a brow. “Hannibal, you know I’m right.”

He shot him a disdainful look. _It is not you I am worried about. I am concerned about the thousands of official and non-official individuals who might still be looking for a very alive, very not dead, Will Graham._

The older man twisted in his chair. Lips drifted across faint stubble on his jaw and worked skin red on his throat. “The supposition of your rightness does not entitle you to brow beat me in to granting my permission.”

“I don’t…I don’t need your permission.” Balmy breath whispered against his ear. “I want it.”

Hannibal pushed back from the table and stormed the hall.

“Hey!” A hurt voice called.

Feet bounded after.

“What if you are recognized!” The older man whirled on his heel to face Will, jaw clenched as his grating tone rose to a near shout. “Apprehended? Returned to Uncle Jack? Am I to discover you plastered across Tattle Crime as either prisoner or heroic rescue?”

“Baby…” Glistening ocean blue fixed him.

 _I do not need your pity._ The older man jerked the other direction, crossing arms. _I am asking you not to go._

Will took a few steps forward and slid both arms around a tense torso, squeezing gently. He turned Hannibal in his arms. “Everything is going to be okay.”

A cheek came to rest above a hammering heartbeat. He thought of the single passport and plane ticket sitting on the desk in the study. One way. With one of Will’s aliases stamped on it. To the one place they had no business returning to. He didn’t want Will a hundred thousands of miles away without anyone to protect him. He wanted him here. Wanted him home. Safe. With him.

_Stay with me._

“It’ll be okay.”

Hannibal stared at the front door, vision blurred hot with tears, and let his arms hang at his side, response hoarse. “When it is not?”

He wanted to lock the door, board up the windows, and tie Will to their bed. He never wanted him out of his sight. Not ever again. What was the point of holding on to something if it was just going to leave him? If he was going to be forced to let go?

“Shh.” Soft lips wound across the side of his face, hand tugging. “Come to bed. I have to leave in a few hours…”

His mind raced trying to figure out something to bargain with. Anything to keep Will from leaving. A hundred flannel shirts worn with age from a vintage shop. Another boat perhaps, something smaller he could take out on his own. A dozen bouquets to surround them with the promise to make love to him all day. As he was led to their bedroom, his sanity left him and he wrote a blank check in his mind with an unnumbered amount of dogs on it.

He opened his mouth to speak, to demand, to beg. Then Will kissed his mouth tenderly and pulled him on the bed. Clothing fell away. As they held close and heat tangled, all he could think about was how much he had to lose.

_Will…please don’t go…_

 

_* * *_

 

Shoulders hunched inside a black parka, Will made his way down a narrow alley, glancing up and behind him through a mist of grey rain. He pulled the hood lower, rounding a littered sidewalk and continued north. He glanced at a green sign, _Parkway Avenue_. He was getting close. His muscles ached. Stress and vengeful anticipation. From the moment a taxicab had dropped him off at _Charles du Gaulle_ , Will had been in flight or fight response mode, his nerves humming electricity. His beard had grown out over his scar, hiding most of the planes of his face. His hair clipped short with a dusting of grey. But every time someone looked at him—another passenger, a security guard, a customs agent—his teeth set on edge and he was certain that was the end of it. The end of him. They would know, recognize him, and it would all be over. He saw his life flash before his eyes at each security checkpoint. By the time he reached Seattle he could barely stand. He was bone weary, driving straight from the airport to the outskirts of the city. He tightened his grip around a pitiful excuse for coffee and trudged on.

 _In and out. Quick._ He repeated over and over in his head like some positivity mantra. _Then we go home._

Pitching the cup in a trash receptacle, Will skirted a group of laughing girls wearing sequined dresses and high heels. He looked at his watch. It was nearly midnight. He curled hands deeper in downy pockets and waited for the chill to ease so they would stop shaking. He ducked beneath an onyx marbled overhang of a business office and slid inside the shadow it provided. This was not the side of town he expected to end up in. It was glitzy, clean, and the streets were lined with gleaming waxed luxury cars. He gazed at a small skyscraper across the street, all silvery green mirrored windows stretching to bleak clouds above. He pulled out his phone and checked the address a second time.

 _Peter Dubois’ last known address._ Will grimaced as a sickly green taste filled his mouth. _Formerly Peter Dumas. Peter Marchand. Peter Barbier. But best known to his friends as Peter Moreau in another life. What are you doing with a stack of aliases, Peter? Who are you really? And what, or who, are you hiding from?_

Sliding fingertips across the screen, the younger man brought up a digital newspaper article until the muted center page photo filled the screen. A group of tuxedos and women in cocktail dresses filled a stage. At the center, a golden statue of an angel was held high for the crowd to see. All smiles and bright eyes. All except one. An impossibly tall man hunching at the back left, smile and eyes downcast, demure, tucking long blonde hair behind an ear and nodding at a petite woman at his side. He kept his face from the camera, but he knew it was Peter. He couldn’t have been much older than Elias. A few years maybe. Twenty eight or twenty nine. Thirty at most. The caption read: _Serenity awarded for their humanitarian efforts. This small group waging war against the sex trafficking industry has saved hundreds and vows to save thousands more._

He wrinkled his nose. Years and a world apart and Elias and Peter had somehow managed to find each other, at least in the causes and values they vowed to uphold.

With a sigh, Will brought up a new text message on a burner phone and punched at the screen. **I’ve found the place. About to go in.**

A check mark and then anxious ellipsis appeared, phone buzzing a response. **_Do you have your knife?_**

 **Yes…** Will stroked the edge of the screen, searching for a hazy breath inside an uneasy sensation tightening his chest. **And two more in my boot. The serrated and the pocket knife.**

_Though I have no desire to tell you how many panic attacks I had during my brief duration passing through security._

He had avoided metal detectors with a stack of fake medical papers and a doctor's note claiming he had metal pins in his arm and leg from a car accident. For an hour's work, they were some of the best forgery he thought Hannibal had ever made. 

**It’s going to be fine. I don’t expect any trouble.**

**_Be quick about it._** The phone vibrated tersely in quick succession. **_Come home._**

He knew better than to tease. But he hated thinking of the way Hannibal looked at him as he left. Wounded. Like he would never see him again.

**Quick like a bunny?**

**_… … …_ **

The younger man’s anxiety grew. He could feel helplessness seeping out on the other side of the screen. He knew the older man’s hands were shaking, his mouth pressed white, eyes bloodshot and tired. He wanted to tell him there was nothing to worry about. That he would be home soon. But he couldn’t promise that. This was just the beginning. How was he supposed to tell the man who had lost him—once to another continent, once to prison, at sea nearly twice for different reasons, and then finally to the hands of a vicious kidnapping—everything was going to be okay? How was he supposed to tell him that?

Ellipses appeared for a full two minutes and then disappeared, returning to a simple check mark indicating the previous message had been read. Hannibal had stopped typing. Whatever it was he wanted to say, he had deleted. The younger man stared up at a flickering lamppost until he saw it reflected red behind his eyes and winced.

_I’m sorry…I never wanted you to feel this way again._

**I’ll call you when it’s done. Hannibal…I love you.** Will typed quickly, deleting the last sentence. It sounded too much like goodbye. He replaced it with: **I’ll talk to you soon.**

There was no real plan after this. Beyond getting here. What was next? He jammed the phone deep in a jean pocket and crossed the street, eyes scanning to the left and right. It was empty. Quiet. He wandered passed a revolving door. Beyond that a set of silver elevators waited. He caught the shadow of a front desk and a security guard half asleep behind it.

“Hell…” Will muttered as he hurried passed and turned a sharp corner in an alley. “Couldn’t make it easy, could you?”

_Is it too late to go back for a tranquilizer gun?_

His eyes traveled along a brick wall. The original side and foundation of the building if he had to guess. The rest of the city was modern glass, but some things never changed. He smiled.

_Thank god for nostalgic hipsters…_

A fire escape. He turned in a full circle twice to make sure no one was watching, either on camera or passing by. He was alone. The last time he had climbed one of these was when he was eleven. He had been running from the cops with a stolen walkman in one hand and bread in the other. He hadn't thought to grab any cassettes. Too poor to buy one and unwilling to risk stealing anything else. He listened to the static whir and click instead. It soothed him.

_The irony. Except this time I need to break in. Not out._

Will jumped, hand latching on the bottom rung of a ladder and stepped out of the way. It shuddered in a free fall. He scaled the ladder, going round and round, glancing in each window he passed. The ground disappeared in the mist below. He felt a dizzying rush. He wasn’t always afraid of heights. But then again he had never dove off a cliff with the man he loved before either. He had religiously avoided heights of any kind since.

A familiar unstable rocking noise drew him back down a set of stairs. He pushed his hood free. He crouched near a square window and squinted. A washing machine lurched against its companions with an uneven load. He drew out a knife, flicking it open. He wedged it between sill and window with a scrape. It was painted shut. Which seemed to be all the security the building seemed to require. He couldn’t see any locks from this angle.

_Lucky for me…not so much so for your residents._

“Come on…” Will groused quietly, placing the flat edge of his palm on the bracket to push up as his knife dug in. “Come on. Just a little—”

The window creaked up an inch. Then another.

“—yes!”

Stowing the knife, wood scraped knuckles as Will jammed them in the opening and hauled on the window. It banged open. He looked around and ducked in before closing it lightly behind him. He flipped the hood back over his head and headed to a sliver of light. He reached out and turned a doorknob slowly. It opened on a modern bronze and steel hallway. At the center, the floor was cut out, industrial rail ringing the perimeter. Geometric glass and wire formed a chandelier dripping down its center. Blank painted doors of apartments lined both sides. Each had a slot for a keycard to gain entrance.

_Well, that’s going to be a problem._

He wasn’t going to be able to pick or force the door open. There were too many cameras. He couldn’t very well lurk in the hallway waiting for Peter to come home. What was he going to do? Knock on the door and hope he answered? Hide in the laundry room if he didn’t? Someone, sooner or later, was going to see him. And he did not come all this way, put Hannibal through hell, for nothing!

_Alright, alright. Think. It’s fine. Everything is fine._

A black and white plaque hung by steel doors with grated glass window of an empty elevator shaft reading: 8F. Peter’s apartment was only three more floors up.

_I need a drink. No turning back now._

Will headed towards the wall of glass and began to tap his way up a dizzying flight of polished stairs. How the hell did people actually live here? It was too…sterile and white. He felt hellishly out of place and not because he had broken in. Voices drifted down to him and echoed through geometric cut outs on the walls.

“Roger, it’s getting quite late. I need rest,” Honeyed French accent brushed the light and shadow caused by the chandelier. “We both have work in the morning.”

“All the more reason to let me in, beautiful.” Someone purred warmly in response. “You’ll sleep better. Don’t you want that?”

He crept up the stairs. He wanted to avoid contact with people at all cost.

“As appealing as I find the offer, perhaps another night.” An airy laugh stuttered. “I said no, Roger. Come on. You’re drunk. I’ll see you another time.”

Warmth evaporated in the booming reply. “When?”

“I don’t know. I’m tired.”

“Excuses, excuses, Peter. Let me in.”

The younger man’s head snapped upright. The name hung heavy in the air. It couldn’t be. Could it?


	2. Chapter 2

Latching on a wrought iron rail, Will took stairs two at a time.

“Come on, don’t play coy with me. Let me in.” Leather shoes clicked insistently forward. “It’s been weeks of nice restaurants and wine. I think you owe me.”

_9F. 10F._

A tense pause followed. “I don’t owe you anything. I think you should go.”

Will wheeled towards the door labeled 11F and eased through, letting it click behind him. He kept his spine pressed to the wall, skirting slowly towards the edge.

“That’s not what I heard.”

Something thumped and then rattled, a pained groan following. Something ripped. He peered cautiously around the corner.

Blonde hair clung to a rosy mouth gasping for air, falling over wiry shoulders of a navy peach skin bolero. Stark grey eyes watered as long legs twisted around thicker ones. Peter was pinned between the door of his apartment and a broad backed man wearing a tuxedo jacket. Hair pale brown, slicked back on a high forehead. One white gloved hand was gripping a throat, the other shoved between tattered layers of a creamy chiffon blouse. The more Peter struggled, the tighter the grip became. Light eyes strayed to a camera blinking in the camera of the hall, pleading, hoping someone was watching.

Will knew no one was watching. No one except him. His fingernails bit his palm. A dozen different scenarios raced through his mind. He thought about walking by them to an apartment door at the opposite end of the hall. It was directly below the camera. It was too close to hide from. What if he pretended to know Peter, a boyfriend or a late night date, to whisk him inside and away from the other man? No, that wouldn't do. What if Peter misunderstood his attentions as an attack and called the police? What if the line backer of a man knocked his fucking teeth out and left him unconscious? He wouldn't be any help then.

“Some of my boys recognized you the other night.”

Frigid cold rushed Will’s skin. His jaw clenched. Fog filtered through his mind. His palms began to sweat against a handle of a blade covered in chipped paint. What if he grabbed Roger by the shoulders and threw him over the center railing? Surely no one would mind the screams as the man plummeted to a deserved and messy death.

_Your ideas are useless, Will. He's going to run. He's going to run and the only way Elias will see him again is if you throw the kid tied up in your trunk. If you don't get arrested first..._

“You used to live in New York, didn’t you?” Roger leered at Peter over the bridge of a crooked nose, dark eyes narrowing as the blouse tore open at the seam of a sleeve, fluttering open against a heaving ribcage. “So what’s the going rate? Huh? How much?”

The younger man's stomach roiled. Heard pounding of blood growing louder and louder in his ears. He had to do something.

_Come on, think._

“I-I-I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Peter stammered, smile wavering as color drained from cheeks and he groped for the handle of the door.

A keycard shook. The mechanism for the lock chirped.

“I’ve had enough!” The other man shouted, another shove sending them barreling through the frame. “Get in there.”

The plastic card fell to a waxed floor. Clothing tore and chaffed.

"No! Roger, I said no!"

Heels and tips of shoes scuffed. An apartment door slammed shut.

A plead reached a high pitched wail. “P-please, Roger, not tonight. Tomorrow. I promise tomorrow. We’ll have fun. I’ll show you a good—“

Sickening crunch of bone meeting soft flesh echoed. Then another and another.

“Shut up!”

Something crashed. Pitiful yelps muffled. Everything became still. Nothing except the unerring blink of a camera filled the hall.

Will shot forward, wrenching the knife out of his pocket and stalked the hall. He kept his head low. He moved mechanically, mind blanking. Blazing heat wrapped around him, replacing the frigid numb, burning the back of his throat and behind his eyes. Burning brighter and brighter until all he saw was buzzing white of the lit hallway. Then he started shaking. Every bone and muscle in his body trembling, a fire blazing from the inside out.

“Shut your whore mouth and suck. Or you’ll wish you had.” A harsh voice bellowed over quieting sobs. “You hear me?”

His fingers coiled the keycard, slamming it against the lock. Two chirps and a red light. Another chirp. Nothing. He swore. Cries grew louder and louder. A single chirp. A green light. The lock buzzed. Will slammed his boot up and kicked the door open. Wood splintered. A metal handle slammed an interior wall, plaster crumbling. He took a step in, gripped the door, and let it shudder behind him. He didn't need witnesses for this. 

_I'm going to break every bone in your fucking body, Roger. I only wish I had enough time to display you properly._

He shook, eyes adjusting to the dark. The sickening flash of a prison cell faded to overturned furniture of an apartment.

Peter was thrashing on his back. Both hands gripping the fist at his throat, tears pouring from eyes rolled in the back of his head, choking. A knee was jammed on his chest, the other against a bicep to keep him down. The other man was bent over him, dripping dick in hand, inches from a mouth.

“Who _the fuck_ are you?” Roger twisted on knees, dark eyes flashing up at the shadowed figure. “Mind your own goddamn business. Or wait you’re fucking turn.”

Pure red washed through his vision. He didn’t register the voice. Or the helpless choking. He didn’t think. He just acted. Some demonic being howled vengeance.

Will lunged. His body collided with the other man. They fell. Plaster splintered. He drove one fist in a stomach. Coughing spit drenched the front of his jacket. He gripped a throat and lifted the man off the floor. He staggered with the sheer weight of him. Eyes bulged. Feet kicked out against air. Sweaty palms pawed at his arms, his shoulders, his face.   

"How's this for a fun fucking time, cocksucker?" The younger man snarled. "You like choking your victims as you rape them? Huh? Like to watch them suffer?" He banged the man repeatedly on the wall for emphasis, grip merciless on a throat. "I'm sorry, what was that? Couldn't quite hear you? Speak up."

His grip eased, choke turning to a cough, sneer twisting. "I think you need to be held down and taught some manners, little boy."

Will choked on bile as a different voice, one he hadn't heard in years, rang in his mind. _"It wouldn't hurt so much, darling, if you stopped struggling. Now stop crying or I'll be forced to gag you."_

"I should _gut_ you like the pig you are!" He cuffed a throat and squeezed. Strangled noises replied. He reached for the knife in his pocket, uncurling the blade. "Leave you hanging by your entrails on the fire escape. Maybe give you a castration free of charge. How does that sound?"

A knee then leather shoe caught his stomach. Once then twice. Will doubled over coughing. The man slumped to the ground then barreled forward, howling. An elbow buried in his eye socket. His knife slicked a mouth. Blood spurted across his face. Another hit sent his knife spinning out of reach.

There was a dial tone. Someone close was screaming for help, cowering behind a couch in the corner.

He slammed knuckles against a cheek then a stomach. A fist crunched his nose. He stumbled. Something sharp sliced through his vest sending heat and feathers pluming in the air. He found himself on his back. A leather belt hissed free and cracked his face. His cheek split open, blood oozing. Another hit connected with his mouth, hot gushing out and trickling down his chin. Two hundred pounds of muscle wrestled him down and flipped him on his stomach. Will threw his elbow back, straining for the knife. He howled, arm wrenched behind him. A meaty hand gripped him by the neck and slammed him down. He gasped for breath. His eyes watered. A knee dug his kidney. He groaned.

"Hold still." Hands wrenched his jacket and hauled on the waistband of his jeans.

"Fuck!" Will bucked frantically, knees bruising. "Get you're fucking hands off me!"

"I told you-" His skull cracked the floor. "-to stay put!"

_God no. No. God no._

Will lay on the floor stunned. His head throbbed. His vision went black. His brow felt wet then warm. He heard a drawer bang closed, muffled by his strangled breathing. He could hear his blood. His heart.

_No, no, no._

"Stay where you are, Peter! You're next!'

Something metallic pinged then rolled across the floor. His palm fluttered forward, fingers stretched wide. He could almost reach the knife. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe.

_Stay awake._

His shoulder and arms jerked.

_"Why are we not allowed to speak what has been done to you?"_

Leather snapped his lower back, searing skin. "Hold still while Daddy teaches you a lesson!"

His stomach heaved. Will choked down vomit.

_No. Not fucking again._

Fingertips touched metal.

A blade slashed backwards blindly. "Fuck you!"

Screams of agony filled the room. He twisted. Blood poured from an eye socket above. He tried to swipe at a face. Roger slammed him down. Hands were at his throat now, squeezing, choking the life out of him. Will gasped for air, vision dimming. His arms shook. He fought to keep his own knife from plunging in to his cheek and ripping him open. Roger bore down, good eye glittering, spit dripping from teeth. Ramming a knee up, Will caught a jaw. Teeth clacked, strangled cry piercing. He wrenched his hand sideways, ribbons of red pouring from a throat. He rolled on top of the man, plunging the knife over and over again. Into a chest. A stomach. A groin. Blood pooled the carpet, spattered windows, slicing up pure white walls.

By the time breathing returned, before Will himself returned from the haze, he was drenched in blood. He pushed off the lifeless body and stumbled backwards. He dragged jeans up his hips. He fell in to a bay window just as he began to shake, red beading fingers as he pushed wet hair from his face and stared down at the butchered thing on the floor.

"Fuck you..." He heard his voice shaking out raw. "Piece of fucking shit."

The smallest, pitiful noises escaped his mouth. He tried to remember how to breathe. He clutched at the heart racing in his chest. Skin crawling. Hot and cold and sick and pleased. He touched a bleeding welt on the small of his back and yelped. The sensation of stinging was sickly. Nauseatingly familiar. He started to rock back and forth. He gripped his knee, nails biting through denim. The beginnings of a panic attack crested the lobes of his lungs, rising fast.

_What did I do? What did I just do? What just happened? Hannibal. Hannibal. I need Hannibal.  
_

Something clicked. The younger man looked up to find Peter on the other side of a Colt revolver, eye swollen shut. He glanced at the floor where an empty crumpled box of bullets lay next to a couch. Shredded chiffon swayed over a chest covered in bruises and fine sheen of red tinted sweat. A thin neck was bleeding from red to purple with palm spreads. Nail marks—no something else, something deeper— slashed up a quivering stomach. He squinted trying to make out the pattern.

Peter lunged, gun first.

“Jesus Christ!” Will threw up hands in defense, knife clattering to the floor and shook his head. “Peter! No. Peter! I’m not here to hurt you. I swear to—”

 _“Ferme ta gueule, fils de pute!”_ Peter screamed, gripping the shaking revolver with both hands, tears staining cheeks.

(Shut your mouth, son of a bitch!)

“Hey, hey…” The younger man thrust an upturned palm forward, head jerking back and reverberating the window. A cold barrel jammed his forehead. “Calm the fuck down!”

He suddenly heard the dial tone. Saw the cell phone lit up near the corner of a broken lamp. The faint voice in the background saying, _hello, hello, are you still with me, sir? Sir?_

“Goddammit…” He hissed between grit teeth. His eyes flicked passed rain clinging to the window, sliding down the side of buildings, and spotted faint red and blue lights in the distance. “ _Fuck_. We can’t stay here. You have to come with me!”

 _“_ _Je ne reviendrai pas! Tu ne peux pas me faire!”_ Peter shouted, muzzle bruising a temple.

(I will not go back! You can’t make me!)

Will sat, gaze darting between the man threatening his life and the inevitable wail of sirens growing near, he listened to the patter of rain and tried to remember if he had told Hannibal he loved him before he left for the airport. Had he kissed him softly enough? Held him tight enough in their bed? Would it be enough?

_Was I ever enough, Hannibal?_

It was only when his splitting skull dimmed to a dull throb he dared look up. His stomach plummeted. The other man backed away, arm slung protectively around a quivering torso, lips murmuring some kind of prayer. Grey eyes wild, terrified, haunted. The revolver had swung away from him and Peter was pointing it squarely at his own head.

“I won’t!” White teeth clenched. “I won’t go back there.”

_No, no, no._

“Fucking fuck…oh god…” The younger man got to his feet at first and then dropped to knees, locking both blood slick hands behind his neck, gaze pleading and whispered. “ _Calmez-vous. Écoutez. Ecoute, d'accord?_ ”

(Calm down. Listen to me. Listen, okay?)

This wasn’t right. Will's stomach lurched. He sucked at a bloodied lip to keep it from quivering. All the fragments of information gathered inside his mind at once.

_“He was half dead when I took him in, Will, it’s not something I really like talking about. Do you have any idea what men pay to do to sex workers? Especially the unwilling ones? …I…I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. Sometimes I forget. Can we talk about something else, please?”_

_Peter Dubois._ _Formerly Peter Dumas. Peter Marchand. Peter Barbier. But best known to his friends as Peter Moreau in another life._

Will felt the dart of his eyes as piece by piece slotted together. He lifted his gaze to plead again. Then he saw a marking. Faint as it caught light. A crescent brand just below the left of a clavicle hidden by a wisp of chiffon. He saw jagged lines of the Verger brand on Hannibal’s back and felt his mouth go dry.

_They think they own you. Whoever Elias saved you from. You think I’m here to take you back? Do you think I'm one of them?  
_

What was he going to do? Peter was going to blow his brains out before Will got the chance to explain. Oh Christ, Elias, how could he do this to Elias? God, what the fuck was he supposed to do? Jesus Christ. This was fucked ten ways to Sunday. He saw the sputter of a crime scene. Bludgeoned body of a man on the floor. Brains spattering white walls. Will in the middle of it all when the police came. And they were coming.

He let his gaze drift skyward, breathing out. “I’m sorry. Elias, tell him how sorry I am. Tell him I love him. I'm sorry.”

Fevered prayer stopped, gun lowering a fraction. “…What? What did you just say?”

 _Good god._ Will closed stinging eyes and sucked in a steadying breath. _Please. Please let this work._

Peter jerked the gun up. Will reached for the zipper on his parka. He froze. He forced three breaths through his nose and out his mouth. He nearly thanked God for the small kindness of Peter pointing the gun at him and not himself. It was a start.

“T-take it easy,” He pleaded, patting the jacket and holding out his hands to show they were still empty. “I’m going to pull out a photograph and hand it to you. Easy.”

He withdrew a crinkled Polaroid. Elias looked up at him brightly from beneath a wide brimmed straw hat, fingers buried in dirt, planting seedlings in the garden. Will blinked away tears. He was so fucking sweet and good to them.

_Him. I'm doing it for him._

He tossed the photo across the floor. Peter crouched warily, fingers tapping blindly, refusing to lower the gun or his eyes for even a second. He picked it up, glanced and gasped.

“Where did you get this! Where! Do you have him! _Réponds-moi!_ ” Peter marched forward, stormy eyes flashing, gun pointed at the center mass of a forehead. “If you so much as touched him!”

(Answer me!)

Will fell back, grimacing as metal connected with an already split brow. “I—fuck!”

Blood trickled his temple. He could hear the sirens. Much closer now. Distinct and blaring. No longer blurred lights on the horizon. His side throbbed. He looked down and touched a spreading splotch of blood on his jacket.

_Great. Just great._

“If you ever want to see him again, you’ve got to come with me!” Will snarled and snatched up his knife, jumping to his feet and hauled the other man forward by torn fabric. “ _Right now_!”

The younger man saw the scene outside himself. Saw Roger pinning Peter to the door in the same way. It sounded and looked the same. 

"No, that's not..." Will tried to touch a shoulder to comfort.

_I'm not threatening you or Elias. God, how could you...?_

Peter whimpered and flinched. The man crumpled to knees with a soft sob and pressed his face to Will’s thigh, staring helplessly at the photograph and whispered, “I’ll go. I’ll go. Please don’t hurt him. You can do whatever you want with me. Just don't touch him.” Tearful eyes swung up, pleading, hands sliding up legs and moved to unbutton jeans. “I’ll be good, sir, so good. Tell me what you want.”

“N-no!” Will stumbled back and fell against the edge of a white sectional sofa, trembling, head shaking violently. “No. _God, no._ I’m not—”

_I’m not going to fucking hurt you._

Peter looked down and slid what remained of his blouse over shoulders, peeling it off, and let it fall to floor. Blue eyes darted away. The other man stayed on his knees, bloodied and torn and battered, resigned and willing. His throat closed up. His stomach lurched. Will was going to be violently ill. The room began to spin. He jammed a wrist over his mouth and heaved forward. The last time he had felt this sick was coming to in a cell stripped naked and sobbing. He tried not to think how close he had just come to repeating an experience he tried every day to forget.

He crouched next to the other man, holding out a shaking hand. Peter cowered low, eyes screwed shut, waiting. In that moment, Will saw himself once more hiding in dingy mold of a closet then gagged and chained in darkness. All he could smell was sweat and blood. He heard himself screaming somewhere in the chasms of it all. They had to get the fuck out of there. He just wanted to go home.

_I need you, Hannibal, I need you. Tell me everything is okay._

“I’m going to take your hand,” His words splintered and shook as much as his hands, sweat beading his forehead. “I need you to trust me, Peter. I know you don’t know me. But if you don’t come now, I’m a dead man. Elias is waiting for you. I swear to fucking God I am not lying about that.” He pressed the revolver to a palm and pointed it as his chest. “I swear on my life. Here. Here. All you have to do is squeeze the trigger. Please, please come with me. I can’t be here when the police come. I need your help. I have to get out of here. I have to go home.” Panic rose and Will started to choke on it, gasping for breath. “I p-p-promised. I promised.”

Peter scrambled away, crouching behind a side table for safety and watched Will slide to the floor, doubled over, in pain. He couldn't move. The young man glanced at the revolver. Then at the door. Once more at Will. Something like pity reached his gaze. He rose on shaky legs. Peter wobbled over to a closet and pulled out two wool trench coats. He buttoned one around Will who was struggling to stand. The other he zipped over a bare chest before winding a cashmere scarf over his head and throat. He dropped the revolver in a pocket and turned. For a second, he studied Will warily, weak and stumbling, clutching at the wall for support. He could barely stand. What threat did he pose now? He wrapped a strong arm around a waist and steered them out in bright lights towards the elevator.

“We can’t—“

Peter glanced over the middle section, following the length of the chandelier all the way down to the first floor. Three men in official uniforms loomed at the front desk, hunched over security cameras. Elevator doors dinged open and they stepped in.

“Quiet,” Peter snapped, jamming Will’s face in the crook of his arm, stooping to press his mouth to a bent neck and shield the side of his face. “Stay as you are. There is a camera directly behind you.”

The younger man stiffened and breathed in delicate notes of jasmine, cheek smearing blood across the front of a coat. “Now what?”

“Follow my lead. Do as I say. Or I’ll kill you.”

A palm pushed the welt on his back. He let out a hiss. Will’s body jerked more out of self-preservation than fear. He had made a promise. He couldn’t keep it dead.

“No! Stay close.” Peter reeled him in until their hips pressed together, slender legs tangling around him, running a hand up the back of his thigh before slipping it in a back pocket. “They’re watching. Stay where you are.”

“I’m n-n-not comfortable with this,” Will choked out as the embrace tightened and lips swept down his ear, sucking off blood. “You don’t even know my name.”

“I don’t give a fuck who you are." A scalding tongue lapped a brow, thumb digging in to stem the bleeding. "Only that you seem to know where Elias is. I don’t need to know you to use you. You want to get out of here or not?”

“Y-yeah. But-”

“Then _shut up_. And remember who's in charge. It’s dark in the lobby. Pretend you’re drunk.”

“What?”

Another ding sounded. Peter swung them out in a hallway, breezing by the front desk Will had first seen. Light, seductive laughter ruffled his curls as they stumbled towards the front doors. Three policemen pushed by them and went straight for the elevators. His heart stopped. Nearing sirens sent paralysis sinking through his body. His legs became heavy. He struggled to keep his eyes open. A kiss brushed his cheek, palm keeping him firmly against a fluttering heartbeat, shielding his bloodied face from several suspicious glances.

“Jorgen, will you be a dear and call us a car? I’m afraid…” Peter giggled against the top of his head, turning Will behind him. “…my date and I have had more than we should.”

“Of course, sir.”

“What’s all the fuss anyway?”

“A minor disturbance in the building. Nothing to worry about, sir.”

Then he felt rain. The chill. To him the sirens were deafening. A score of men with guns drawn rushed around them, shouting commands to one another.

“Where’s your car?” A hiss pressed to his ear, shaking lightly. “Did you drive? Do you have a car? Answer me!”

“West Sixtieth and Giles,” The younger man slurred.

“Get in.”

Hands pushed. Will fell on supple leather of a town car and watched Peter clamber in after him. Over him. Straddling his hips. A clip of bills was passed through a window, brief exchange muffled. Dark eyes flicked up in a mirror beneath a visor. Gripping his hair, Peter kept him stretched out in the back seat and began to kiss him as the car pulled away from curb. Wide eyed, Will put his hands on a chest, on shoulders, then forcefully gripped the leather interior. Whispers turned to teasing moans. The driver looked away, nose wrinkling. A privacy partition vibrated as it slid and locked in to place, blocking the view.

Sirens grew quieter.

“Finally.” Peter muttered, swinging off him and dragging Will to a corner of the car. He shoved a silver engraved flask in his hands. “Drink.”

Will stared at the container and then back at Peter, mouth hanging open.

“What? Don’t flatter yourself. Have you seen the state of your face? I assure you the more uncomfortable onlookers are the less likely they are to remember you.” Peter unwound the long scarf and began dabbing at blood on his face and neck. He tipped his chin up to the light, squinting at the beginnings of a black eye. “You are hardly my type.”

“…Thank you?”

Sighing, the man withdrew a small gold compact from a breast pocket and began to sweep powder across it. “Don’t thank me yet. I haven’t decided." Peter moved to cover up his own wounds, grimacing. "I might still turn you in to the police. Or kill you.”

Will stared at an advertisement for a hotel until his eyes crossed. He knew he was in shock. It was close. All of it. Too close. His lips stung with heat. His body hurt from cold. He kicked back the flask and let whiskey burn all the way to his stomach. God, he wanted to get violently drunk and forget all of this. They rolled up to the parking garage. His violent shaking had subsided to shivers. He didn’t have time to wonder about what Peter would choose. All he had to do was keep moving.

_Home. Let me go home._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I apologize for any languages I butcher and appreciate corrections.


	3. Chapter 3

The parking garage was a maze of corridors and levels. Will couldn’t remember exactly where he parked. His head buzzed. He stopped beside a cherry Porsche and threw up. He cleared his throat and wiped a sleeve across his mouth. He felt calmer after. He stumbled up an incline. He looked back to make sure Peter was behind him. He was. Stalking cautiously in pursuit. He spied the black Mercedes sedan underneath a spitting lamp. He let his body take over on autopilot and his mind hum dark.

Then he was driving. Their bloodied clothes in the trunk. Switching gears and staring down an entrancing beam of headlights. Steering them through the city and heading for open highway to get them out of Seattle. Out of the state. Out of the fucking country. The white static light blinked up at him from the dash. _2:11 am._

“Do you want to talk about what happened?”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Peter—“

“I don’t know who you are. Or why you have come! By right, I should have shot you. An intruder in my home. I should shoot you now.”

Panic crested the younger man’s mouth in a small moan. “Don’t.”

“But I _should_.” Peter glanced dispassionately at him before returning to stare out the passenger window in silence. A hand slid over the outlines of a revolver in a pocket. “Do you know how many years it took to build a life for myself from where I started? You took it all away. I have nothing.”

Will fumbled for a bloodied phone in the cup holder and punched the audio dial on the center dash. If it was going to be the last time then he wanted to talk to Hannibal. Ringing buzzed through car speakers.

A rich accent crackled tersely. “Will?”

Will stared at the ceiling for a second, tears welling his eyes. His voice. Hannibal’s voice. Was there anything more beautiful? Except for the man himself.

“I’m here,” Will said, voice pitching high then rough.

Two police cars and one ambulance raced by, wailing.

He heard Hannibal swallow, tone growing cold. “Are those sirens?”

“Put Elias on the phone. Don’t tell him anything.”

“Will—“

“Now for god fucking sake!” Will hissed, banging a palm on the steering wheel.

_I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry._

The despondent sigh of fear and disappointment broke his heart.

He pointed at Peter, growling a warning. “Not a word. Not a sound. Got it? I don’t want him finding out like this. Especially if you’re going to put a bullet in me.”

A hand slipped in a pocket, sliding around a barrel, flexing. Muffled voices rose low than high and higher. The speaker cracked and banged as the phone was thrown or slammed. Tones rustled.

Pitiful sighs breathed on the other end a minute later. “Lecter residence?”

Peter bolted. He leaned forward, palm pressed to the speaker to feel the vibration.

“Hey.”

“…Will? Is that you?” Elias asked faintly beneath static. “Will?”

Tears slid over the soft smile on his mouth. “Yeah, sparrow, it’s me. You know you shouldn’t answer the phone like that.”

“What? Lecter residence? But it is. And who else calls Hannibal, but us?”

Peter covered his mouth to muffle a sob of relief and slumped forward, head between his knees, photograph pressed to his heart in a breast pocket.

“Are you a Lecter?”

“I might as well be.”

“Ah, okay then.”

“Where are you? Is something wrong?” The priest covered a palm over the cell phone speaker, whispering fiercely, “Hannibal is slamming dishes in the kitchen. Should I be worried?”

The phone rustled again as if it was being held up. Will squinted as if he could hear better. In the background pots and pans violently collided.

“Christ. I just bought him those a few months ago…” The younger man muttered, slumping in the chair and sliding the leathery wheel in a left hand. “Tell him if he even so much as chips the _Haviland Limoges_ china I’m going to put my fist through his handsome fucking face when I get home.”

“Do you really want me to tell him that?” He could hear a skeptical wrinkle of a small freckled nose and the crease of a fair brow.

Will let his hand tentatively fall on a quivering spine shuddering in the passenger seat, swirling it in soothing circles. Peter jerked at first and then let his hand remain.

“No.”

“Should I try to talk to him? He only gets like this when you fight.” A petulant tone turned accusatory then laced with annoyance. “What did you do _this time_ , Will? And why do you always leave me alone with him to deal with it? While you lounge on some beach and sip little umbrella drinks I don’t doubt.”

“Why do you always assume—“

Will felt Peter shaking harder and glanced down. A hand reached to hold his. He realized the other man was laughing. Relief trickled through him. Maybe they would both make it out of this alive.

_Home. I’ll take you home to Elias if you want, Peter._

“Thank you for the vote of confidence. The scenarios you come up with, honestly. _No,_ don’t talk to him…you know there’s no reasoning with him like that. I’ll take care of it. I should be home the day after tomorrow. Or soon there after.” Will touched the split on his mouth and brow. It would take time to heal. He wasn't going to show up with bruises. “You know what. Just tell him I’ll be home soon. Can you tell him that? But later… after he calms down.”

A dramatic sigh hung in the air. “If I don’t intervene we might not have any dishes. Or worse, he’ll make me wash them. And I was hoping for strawberry crème cake. You’ve spoiled my chances now.”

Peter turned his face against a knee, sniffling, watery gaze filled with bright warmth and watched the speaker as if he could see Elias through it.

_Do you remember what he looks like? Or is it dim? Like looking through a fog at morning light?_

“Better that than you dodging an assault of cups and plates. We’ll make more cake. I’ll buy you a whole fucking bakery. How’s that sound?”

“Okay. But I’m sending you to couples counseling. Clearly you are beyond my abilities to counsel.”

Will snorted.

There was a gratuitous sixty second pout. “Will you bring me back a souvenir? Or another kitten? Penelope and I could use another friend.”

Will side eyed the friend in question. He hoped it would be better than a cat. Especially Penelope. Snooty and self righteous little fuzz ball that she was. Could a cat be considered rude? She loved Hannibal. Much to his chagrin.

Maybe Elias would confuse all six feet and eight inches of the slim goliath as one and adopt Peter anyway. The kid was very cat like, long limbed, scowly and particular about being left alone. What was one more stray now anyway? Hannibal might not even notice. Well. He _might_ notice.

“Will?”

“Sure thing.”

Peter squeezed his hand, faintest smile appearing. Will squeezed back.

“Elias?”

“Yes?” The priest chirped.

“Can you tell me how to say something? I think I’m going to need a way to get back on Hannibal’s good side or I’ll be sleeping on the couch for a month. Can you say… ‘I love you?’ in French?”

Will knew the exact moment both he and Peter held their breath. He knew how to of course. But he wondered how long it had been since Peter had heard Elias say it. Years. For the two of them…

_Years probably feel like a lifetime._

“In French? Hmm…” Elias bit his lip, thinking before answering softly, “ _Je t'aime_.”

Peter blanketed his face and began to cry again. Will stroked tear stained hair before returning both hands to the wheel.

“Sparrow, will you tell Hannibal?” The younger man heard guilt and pleading sharpen each word.

_Will you tell him how sorry I am? Will you tell him I love him more than any fine china? Break it. What the fuck do I care. Just forgive me when I get home._

“Of course. But I better go take care of this. He’s moved on to the flute glasses. If I don’t get to them now he’ll move on to the wine cellar and we both know what a weepy drunk he is.”

Will let his head thud the wheel for a minute. This was all his fault. Drunk Hannibal was far, far worse than blood lusting Hannibal. And they all knew it.

“God, just don’t let him get to the teacups in the dining room hutch, alright? He’ll have a nervous breakdown. And I don’t mean that figuratively. I really will have to take him to therapy.”

“I’ll do my best. See you soon.” Static replied.

The line clicked. Silence returned. After several long minutes of sniffling, the young man readjusted in the driver’s seat and looked over.

“Are you alright?” Will asked quietly.

“I…” Peter nodded before straightening, gaze returning to the scenery. “Is Elias with you? And this… Hannibal?”

“Hannibal is my husband,” Will sighed admiration and frustration, knot of longing tightening his stomach. “He’s not as bad as he sounds. He’s a little stressed about this whole trip."

_A little? Fuck. I'll have to buy us an entirely new kitchen._

"We didn’t leave the States on good terms. He…” He shook his head, gesturing against the wheel. “He means well. Really. And he adores Elias, I promise. If anyone can reason with him, it’s the priest. Miracle worker that one. A good man.”

_Or cannibal whisperer._

"He always was." The other man touched the face in the photograph. “Where is he?”

“West coastline of France. He sort of…followed us home? We may have played a small hand in accidentally tarnishing his reputation in Denmark.”

Leather creaked threateningly. " _Excuse me_?"

Will blinked and jerked his head to the side, blustering, “No, no! Not like that. He isn’t _with_ us. Not in that sense. I mean he’s with us. He lives with us obviously. But not…we’re not...?”

His mouth ran on with several more excuses while his brain tried to catch up.

_He kissed me once, but to be fair, he was extremely distraught at the time? About you, actually. He’s slept in our bed on a number of occasions. But we’re not together. Understand? God, I’m even rambling in my head._

“Hell, I’m going to shut up now.”

Inquisitive grey lifted, part curiosity and suspicion. “Why are you here? Why come looking for me?”

“Elias misses you. And I can’t fucking stand to see him cry anymore. I _won’t_ stand for it. He’s been good to me. To us. We wanted to give him something in return. You’re a hard man to track down you know.”

A flash of fear was replaced by stony disinterest. Peter half turned in his chair, slinging arms around his body, reply bitter, “Apparently I did not hide well enough.”

“Hey.” Will put a hand on his shoulder and didn’t let go when he flinched, squeezing lightly and kept his voice low, “ _Fuck_ that guy. He’s dead now. He got what was coming to him.”

_He deserved far worse._

Bitterness shot back. “What do you know?”

“I know _some_ of what happened to you. Before you met Elias. You aren’t going back there. And I know what it’s like to live in fear.”

Grey eyes flicked over and held blue for a frigid moment, calculating the amount of truth in the statement. “Do you? What is it you could possibly know about fear?”

“More than you seem to think.”

“Are you afraid you will be unable to thwart off the masses fawning over your beauty and charm? How terrible that must be for you.”

Will winced away sarcasm dripping in the reply and returned his attention to the road stretching out in the dark. Mile markers shot passed. He tapped on interior lights. He opened his mouth to speak and closed it again. There was nothing he could say. He shook his head, fingers tapping a flare of anxiety on the steering wheel. He hitched up his t-shirt. Pulled it up to the nape of his neck. Then leaned forward to expose a back full of white welts and scarring standing stark against fresh livid bruising.

“My god.” Peter banged the switch and doused them in darkness with a whisper, “Who did that to you?”

_Doesn’t matter now. He’s fucking dead too._

He could hear the rustle of clothes shaking in the passenger seat. Fingers whisking cheeks to wipe at tears. Will let his shirt fall, gripping the wheel for support and quickly changed the subject.

_I don’t want to upset you. Just know you aren’t alone._

“Do you want to see him? Elias? I haven’t told him. If you want to back out, I just need to know. We can pretend this never happened. But you can’t return to Seattle, understand? You’ve gotta forget me. Hannibal. Elias. Move on.”

“If you know, how can you ask me that?”

The younger man held his breath and let it out in a low hiss. “I guess I don’t need to. But I will. For his sake. He’s still mine to protect. Even from you.”

“Am I still deemed too vile, too unworthy, to even know him?” Peter bit back, fists clenching knees. “Too corrupt to look upon him from a distance?”

“That’s _not_ what I meant...” Will threw frustration over a shoulder with a grimace and pointed. “There are two plane tickets and two fake passports in that glove box. So I’m going to ask one more time. And if you don’t answer, I’m not going to ask again. You and I will part ways for good. You want to see Elias or not?”

_Because I'm not going to put him through any more pain._

“More than anything…” Trembling fingertips moved across the bright pixilated face. “I only hope he wants to see me.”

“Good.” Will groaned, pulling at the Henley t-shirt to reveal a deepening red and purple wound below his ribs.

_Ah fuck. I thought it stopped. That’s what I get for lifting my arm over my head._

“Can you drive for a bit? It’s about three hours to the safe house. And I need to take care of this.”

 _Hannibal is going to be pissed_. The younger man sighed, hearing static audio of dishes being thrown around in his head. _More pissed than he already is. Christ, I should take my chances here with the police. Probably safer.  
_

“What kind of man needs a safe house?” Peter leaned across the seat then jabbed two fingers in the wound. “One who hides from the police, hm?”

Will’s vision went red then white then returned with a yelp.

“Flesh wound. It won’t kill you. What kind of man are you?”

He grit his teeth, glaring. “The kind who needs to get the hell out of here as much as you do now. I’m not sure if I need to just get out. Or get the hell away from you. _Christ._ Hannibal and you will get along marvelously.”

Pouting lips pulled to a smirk. “Pull over.”

“You sure? I don’t need any more forced saving at your hands.”

A metal flask reappeared and Peter waved it in his face. “Pull over, Mister Lecter, before you black out.”

“Mister Lecter? Fuck me, I’m not that old.”

“This isn’t the first time I have had to flee for my life, though I do hope it will be the last. And I cannot do that if you kill us both in a wreck. Stop the car.”

Gravel crunched. The car swerved on a shoulder and idled halfway on the grass.

“I’ll drink to that,” Will murmured. He took the flask and fell gracelessly in the back seat. His bones creaked. He splashed whiskey on the wound and reached for a leather bag filled with medical supplies at his feet. “Directions are programmed in the phone. We’ll ditch the car and everything else when get there.”

The engine started with a roar almost drowning out the voice. “Despite what you have been told, or think you know, I am not completely helpless.”

Will winced and reached for cotton gauze to blot the wound. He needed ice for his swollen eye, but that would have to wait. He kept quiet. He knew that tone. He had used it. Repeatedly with Hannibal. Become well acquainted with it in the months that followed his freedom like a cloud of despair. Both in and out of his mind. A desperate grapple for control. Splintered reassurance, pretending, to prove you were unharmed, unscathed, unmoved by violence. It could only hurt you if it was real. If you acknowledged its very existence. He watched white knuckles drag over a wheel. He had experienced the nightmare. Months. For what felt like an eternity. Peter had been sold in to it for years.

_Will you ever recover, Peter? Will you ever be able to close your eyes without seeing what’s been done to you?_

“Peter?”

“What?”

“I have to ask a favor.”

“Another, you mean?”

“Yeah. That. Don’t tell Elias about what happened tonight. I, uh…I don’t want him to know. I don’t want my husband to know either. He won’t…take it well.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. Drink you’re whiskey and leave me alone. I need time to think.”

Delicate lilac petals drifted through the back of his mind, eyes drifting shut. And for the second time in his life, Will wondered what it was he was bringing home with him out of the darkness.


	4. Chapter 4

Elias padded towards the clamor in the kitchen, tugging at pale yellow sleeves of his pajamas. He could smell smoke. Whatever had been cooking was left to boil over and burn on the stove. Something broke on a counter.

“ _Kales vaikas!_ ” The older man roared.

Glass shattered. He jumped and peeked down at the screen lock photo of Will and Hannibal smiling, embracing on a beach. Maybe he should call Will back? Put him on speaker? He sighed. But he sounded stressed and was calling from an unknown number. He set the phone down on an oval table beside the staircase.

_I can handle this, can’t I?_

He peeked around the corner. Flute glasses had been swept from the cupboard and littered the kitchen counter. Water bubbled over on a single pot remaining on the stove, hissing and spitting angrily. An oven mitt was sopping up a smear of red wine sauce seeping across the floor. One overturned frying pan stayed where it had been dropped. A smaller sauce pan rocked beneath a lazy susan with various spice bottles scattered around it. Hannibal stood braced on the kitchen sink, bent at the neck, wringing a kitchen apron in one hand and a glass neck of a wine bottle in the other. He tipped the bottle to his mouth and took a long swig. The priest shuffled feet anxiously forward. He knew from experience the older man was inconsolable when drunk. Especially if Will wasn’t there to comfort him. He continued to glare out the back window at the sea beyond as if waiting for Will to appear.

“Hannibal?” Elias called timidly.

“Leave me alone.” Reply harsh and cold.

The priest tiptoed in, rounding the left side of the marble island and reached for the stove. There would be no home to return to if they burnt it down in Will’s absence. Bubbling water sputtered as the heat clicked off and cooled.

“I want you to go.” Knuckles flexed the apron. Hannibal stared straight ahead. “I am in no mood to humor your attempts to soothe me, little dove.”

Elias bit his lip. He stayed where he was. Glass and sauce covered the floor. He didn’t want the older man to get hurt. Or the dogs. Or his cat, Penelope. He had shut them in the study after Hannibal stormed off and left the phone spinning on the floor. He would stay and clean up first. He glanced in the sink. The square porcelain baking pan was split in five sections. Vanilla cake was floating, soggy from running water. Fingers loosed on the apron revealing streaks of red.

“Hannibal, you’re bleeding!” The priest reached out, towel in hand. “Please let me—owww!”

Sharp pain raced up the ball of his foot. Elias yelped again and hobbled back, banging into a counter. He looked down. A thin piece of glass pierced through the thin sole of his slippers.

“I told you—“

Hannibal whirled, glass crunching beneath hard leather soles. Maroon eyes fell to fresh blood. He snapped hands around a thin waist, pale and wild eyed. The older man lifted Elias and set him on the kitchen island, kicking at glass and pans. Red smeared the floor. He threw the apron away and jerked at the towel small hands clutched. Hannibal pulled a foot  against his chest, nimbly peeling at the slipper to see the glass. A thumb firmly pressed the trickling wound and reached for the glass with the towel. Elias whimpered as it was pulled free then pitched in to the sink. Both slippers joined the mess. The older man bound his foot with the towel. Violet eyes stared at the bloodied palm print at his waist, listening carefully to frantic breaths flaring nostrils and darkening a sweeping gaze.

“Don’t you ever—“ Hannibal gripped the priest’s cheeks in a single hand, lip twisting. “—disobey me again, Elias! Do you see what you’ve done? You are hurt and if William returns to find I have let harm come to you while under my care, he will have my head!”

“If?” Elias squinted at blazing eyes, nose wrinkling.

The older man turned his face and squeezed a foot to stem the bleeding, his own blood seeping from a palm the color of rust blotting the towel.

“When. _When_ he comes home, Hannibal. Will said he would be home soon. That’s why he called to tell you. Doesn’t that make you happy?”

“None of this makes me happy! Will is gone! Our dinner is an inedible disaster. My kitchen is in utter ruin! You are bleeding!”

“But Hann—“

“Quiet! You have caused enough trouble for one evening!”

Hannibal marched through the house with Elias shivering in his arms. Heels banged up stairs. Over the threshold. Through the master bedroom and to the bath. The priest was propped on a wide counter. He peeled back the towel to look at his foot. The cut was thin and shallow. Only a bit deeper than a knick from a knife. Bleeding had all but stopped. Cabinets flung open and banged shut. He watched as items were thrown from them. Shaving cream. A leather razor case. Various plastic bottles bounced then rolled. He jumped when a leathery bag banged the toilet stool lid. It was covered in a thin layer of dust.

Straightening, Hannibal jerked it open, rummaging through contents. He produced a roll of gauze, butterfly tape, and a clear rectangle bottle. The older man thrust his hand underneath a spurt of hot water. A cap rolled free on the counter. Then he splashed liquid on his palm, hissing as it began to bubble. Gauze unfurled.

Elias reached for it. “I could—“

Fiery red eyes whipped up and narrowed to slits.

“…or not.” He shrunk away and lowered his gaze.

_I could just sit here quietly until you’re ready. Stubborn man._

Teeth tore off a strip of gauze. The older man wound it tighter and tighter around his palm with quick expert jerks. He knotted it off. He tossed the ruined towel in the sink, red blooming on rising water. Elias leaned over and turned off the faucet. The older man disappeared in the walk in closet and returned with a perfectly folded plain white t-shirt. One of Will’s. It fell obediently to the counter.

“Your clothes are ruined.” Hannibal announced coldly. “They will have to be thrown out. You will put this on for now. ”

Light eyes drifted to a pajama top covered in the other man’s blood. Dotted in tiny print of lilies of the valley and trimmed in blue silk piping. Will had bought them in Paris and wrapped them in a pink ribbon for his birthday. He loved them. He knew very well a little club soda and some baking powder would remove the stain. What was it about blood that made Hannibal so angry? He always got this way when one of them got even the slightest paper cut or bruise.

“You can’t just take them!” Elias cried, bottom lip trembling. “Their mine!”

“They are not salvageable.”

“That’s not true! You are being unreasonable.”

“You are throwing them out and that’s final! Now hold still or I will leave you to deal with the mess you have made by yourself!”

Elias squeaked as antiseptic dribbled down his foot, jerking his leg back. Hannibal growled and planted it on his chest, grip firm, right next to a smear of drying blood.

“You act like you don’t need help from anyone,” The priest warbled, gripping the counter.

Hannibal ignored him. He placed butterfly bandages against it then a roll of cotton.

“Perfect and strong and unaffected. Stubborn. You’re just as bad as him. But as soon as Will leaves—“

Gauze jerked his foot, fingertips trembling, struggling to make a knot.

“—you become an absolute blubbering mess! I don’t even know what’s going on. And you swear and you break things and you refuse to calm down even though you know it upsets me!”

Hannibal dropped the bandages and wheeled out of the room, growling, “Tie it yourself then if my presence is so disagreeable to you!”

“Hey!” Elias tied the bandages in a little bow and hobbled in pursuit. “Hey! I’m talking to you! I’m just trying to help.”

“Leave me be!”

“No.”

“Go away!”

“I will not! I live here!”

Dogs whined downstairs, scratching at the study doors.

“Well sometimes I wish you did not!” The older man shouted. “Then I might find some peace! Go home to your God, your church, your flock!”

Elias stumbled on the third step and gripped the rail, sucking in his lower lip. “You…don’t mean that.” A shuddering voice replied. “You know I can’t…you and Will made sure of that.”

_Do you? I don’t have anywhere else to go…_

A sharp jaw clenched, ticking out a silent reply.

“It’s only been a few days. You are overreacting. It’s not like you have to live without Will forever!”

Picture frames jumped. A fist banged the wall with a roar. “I lived without him for long enough! I will not be asked to do so again!”

“You get mean when you miss him,” Elias whispered, fighting back tears. “Worse still when you fight. Cruel. Don’t take it out on me. I didn’t do anything!”

"You can thank your precious Will for that if he ever comes home!"

The priest winced, whimper escaping and buried his face in the crook of a sleeve.

Hannibal stopped on the stairs, letting his head hang in shame, reply quiet. “I asked you to leave me alone, sparrow.”

“Yeah, you did.” The priest sank, hugging his knees, eyes watering. “But that’s not what you really want. You just can’t ask. You both are horrible about asking for the things you need.”

A palm scrubbed tired eyes. “And what do I need?”

“You need Will. And I’m not him. I know I’m not. And I’m sorry!” Elias clattered down the steps and shoved passed the body blocking his way. “I’ll clean up. Go to bed. I don’t even want to see you until you apologize.”

Hannibal grabbed Elias by the arm, gaze locked on the front door, lips pinched and face blank. This version scared him. Someone or something else looked out of dark eyes, cold and unfeeling. It was not the one who smiled at terrible puns and pressed kisses to Will's hair. Or the man that made them cocoa in the middle of the night when they could not sleep or watched carefully over them when they were sick. This was not their Hannibal.

He tried to wrench free. His heart began to patter wildly in his chest. Was the older man going to throw him out? Had he pushed too far? He bit a quivering bottom lip until it bled. He wanted Will to come home. To tell Hannibal he was sorry. Beg them to let him stay.

_I don’t want to leave. This is my home. You are the only family I have._

Where would he go? He knew no one in this country. He had nothing. Except a scuffed yellow suitcase and a few belongings. He thought about living out of his car again in the dead of winter. For a brief time when he had abandoned the church after Peter abandoned him. Tears welled in his eyes. It had been lonely and freezing and he had wanted to die.

“Let go!” Elias cried, arms and legs shaking, begging to hide. Hannibal couldn’t make him leave if he couldn’t find him. “Or use your goddamn words, Hannibal, I am not standing here all night. You don’t deserve another minute of my time. Or my compassion.”

Wide hands slid from his shoulder to his elbow then curled fingers twisting a pajama top frantically. Small whines lodged in his throat. The older man stepped around him, moved down the stairs to the landing, until he had to look up at him. Saw him pale and small and quaking, refusing to look back, staring down at the hand holding his.

“You are more vengeful than your God, little one.” The older man sighed heavily and pressed knuckles tenderly to his mouth in apology. “Will you stay here for a moment? With me?”

“ _Fine_.”

Elias stood stock still and stared at a cobweb clinging to skylights, watching stars appear as the sky darkened. He focused on regaining control over his breathing. His cheeks ran hot. He wasn’t going to cry. He wasn’t. Wood paneling creaked. Large hands encircled his waist. Hannibal lifted the priest from the stairs and set him delicately on the floor. Soft remorse filtered honey gold in the eyes above. The older man thumbed his flushed face. He pushed sandy hair on a forehead and kissed it, sigh muted . Hannibal tucked Elias inside wide arms, safe against his chest, and squeezed.

A slight nose pushed a chest, snuffling. “Was that so difficult?”

“Yes,” The older man replied gruffly.

They embraced at the bottom of the stairs for several minutes without saying a word.

“Let’s go clean up the kitchen. The dogs need to be let out.”

Lights flipped on. The kitchen looked even worse under a bright display.

“Dinner…” Hannibal drew a wrist roughly across his brow leaving a red mark, glancing at the mess. “I’ll fix you something else if it would please you. You ought to stay off your foot.”

“I’m not hungry.” Elias pouted and pulled the dustpan from the island cupboard. “Stop babying me. I’m fine and you know it.”

Elias placed the wine bottle in the back of the fridge. They swept up the broken glass. Threw away both cake and pan in the trash. Placed all unbroken glasses and dishes back on their designated shelf. Hannibal mopped the floor, scent of citrus filling the house. Elias scoured at both pot and frying pan until he gave up to let them soak over night.

He scampered upstairs to change his pajamas. He didn’t want them to fight anymore. He slipped the t-shirt over his head. It hung passed his knees. He grabbed the silk robe hanging in the master bathroom. Shoes and damp socks waited at the base of the stairs. He let out the dogs who barreled passed with happy barks and ran around the house as if they had been cooped up for days.

When he reached the kitchen, a kettle was whistling on the stove. Two china teacups waited to be filled. He tapped the older man on the shoulder and handed him both pajamas and the robe. Hannibal peeled out of his dress shirt and let the priest help him in the robe.

Hannibal filled the left basin of the sink with cold water, plunging their clothes in and noted quietly, “I will see to the stains in the morning. Or I will take them to be dry cleaned. If yours are ruined, William and I will take you to Paris to buy another.”

The priest nodded and kissed his cheek. Hannibal balanced steaming cups of tea on a tray and slipped an arm around a waist to help Elias to the study. He didn’t really need help. But he knew this was the older man’s way of apologizing. It calmed him to take care of someone else.

After starting a fire in the hearth, Hannibal tucked Elias under a blanket and propped his foot on a pillow placed on the coffee table. The priest murmured thanks on the rim of a teacup. The older man sat beside him, cup in hand, and slid an arm around his shoulders. They listened to fire spit and logs crackle. Peace settling over the house in tones of bluish green and black.

“Hannibal?” The softest blur of a name.

“Mm?”

“Will is going to be home from his trip soon,” Elias said quietly. “He said he’d bring us a souvenir. Isn’t that nice?”

A head nodded jerkily, tears quivering at the corners of maroon eyes.

* * *

 

Bent over the sink, the older man continued to scrub the same wine glass he had been for the last half hour. He had not heard from Will since the flight departed Sacramento. He was growing more anxious by the second. He gripped squeaking glass tighter. It had been a little over a week and his hands refused to stop shaking. Every time he heard a shuffle of feet, a sigh, a creak of a floorboard Hannibal startled only to find Elias drifting through the room to check in on him. Disappointment and then a snarl of fear touched his mouth. The tremble in his hands returned with the retreat of the others presence. He wasn’t able to pretend he was anything except a soft fleshed man, sickly and in love, anymore.

What if something happened? Why wasn’t he there? With Will? How could he have let him go?

He watched the news. Scanned the internet. Listened to any news channel he could find both locally and abroad. Waiting for anything. He hadn’t slept. Barely eaten. He _needed_ Will. To come home. Needed to see him. Touch him.

_Please…please come home._

Hannibal lifted his head, breathed deep, eyes closing. “Will.”

The older man turned. Will leaned heavily against a side of the refrigerator, upturned mouth inviting, eyes calming pools of blue. Fresh shaven skin gleamed in the dim sunset. Gauzy robin’s egg blue hung loosely in a wide scoop around shoulders, effeminate touch of tiny lace accenting knit cuffs of a sweater. It wasn’t something either of them would have bought. He found something faint stirring in his chest all the same, admiring sloping lines and dainty accents.

Will looked smaller, thinner, more frail than Hannibal could remember. His skin a bit more pale. His eyes a little wider smudged in tones of lilac and grey. His mouth drooped a hint of melancholy. Had he always worn the adornments of a man weighed down by the entire world? Was Hannibal the one crushing the life out of him?

“Should I ask for a glass of whiskey?” The younger man asked silkily, pushing off the support to warily skirt edges of the kitchen, gaze flicking left and right. “Or aren’t there any dishes left? Also, where are the dogs?”

The younger man drifted through the kitchen and peered in a hutch of fine china teacups, concern creasing a brow. A relieved sigh breathed out. Doors closed with a tap. Will wandered closer, glancing anxiously at cabinets.

“We seem to be a few light?”

Hannibal grunted a response. He reached out.

Will wandered farther away, fingertips trailing the counter where blood had once been, consciously keeping space between them.

Hannibal had spoken very little after his fight with Elias. Too afraid he might scream and unravel. He struggled to find his voice now. It came out strained and hoarse as if he had been screaming. Maybe he had been in his mind.

“…Out with the priest.”

Maroon eyes traced the path the younger man took careful to avoid him. Hannibal swallowed a rush of…what? Remorse? Relief? Unbridled fury? He waited for the numb in his fingers and knees to subside. In two long strides, he jerkily dragged Will against his chest and pressed his entire face to a slender slope of throat and shoulder. He couldn’t wait. He needed to hold him. His skin was cool to the touch, whisper of earth and rain. Damp touched his eyes and he squeezed them shut, jaw clenching to keep silent.

_You are never leaving my side, Will, not ever again._

“Oh god, I can’t tell you how much I missed this...” Will murmured, sliding hands up a chest and clasping them around his neck. “I missed you. Ah ah, not so tight, please.”

The older man withdrew, chin quirking, watching carefully as each squeeze of his arms drew out a wince on a sweet mouth. “You’re injured.”

A frown quivered. “I’m not. It’s a scratch. Hey, hey, cut it—”

Twisting an arm, Hannibal pinned Will between the island and searching hands. The younger man flinched, struggling to break free. Whimpering protest puffed his neck. Blue eyes snapped shut. He caught a glint of fear. He scented it on cooling skin. He felt legs lock to keep standing. He released an arm and felt a shiver of relief ripple through. There was only one reason, only one other time, Will avoided his touch. He sucked in a breath, vision and mind going blank.

“What happened in Seattle, Will?” He clenched teeth and gripped the counter on either side of a shivering body.

The younger man threw hands up and slumped on the counter sullenly. “There was some trouble, alright. Take a breath would you? It hardly matters.”

Blazing red rose to meet stormy blue. "Excuse me?"

Hannibal could barely keep still. He wanted an answer. Breathing was out of the question. He was going to start in on their dishes and sweep through the house overturning furniture and breaking mirrors.

“Do _not_ …dictate to me.”

Will swallowed, registering the chill in his tone. He lifted the sweater, wavering blue eyes flicking away. Tight bandages wound a fluttering stomach. Dried burgundy blossomed beneath it. The older man’s shoulder jerked violently. He held on to the counter and let his head fall. He wanted to claw at fine gauze, tear it to shreds, until it littered their floor and bury his hand so far inside the wound he could feel the feeble beat of Will’s heart. Hold so tight he could never leave. Never be taken. Never again.

“ _This_ is a knife wound!”

Perplexed brows wriggled a forehead. Will tried to push free, reply dry. “How I missed your overbearing ability to state facts.”

Hannibal grabbed a waist, pressing the wound until Will looked straight at him, expression darkening. “Stay still. Tell me what happened.”

_Who. Who. Who._

“No. It doesn’t matter.”

_Was it a man? Did he lay his hands on you? Did he…touch you?_

Teeth glittered. “Will.”

“Why? So you can make me bleed?”

_God help you, darling, I will not be responsible for my actions._

“If that is what it takes for you to obey.”

“Maybe you should just tie me up in the basement to make sure I don’t go anywhere ever again,” Will suggested, teeth snapping. “I wouldn’t have to be barked at the minute I walk in the door then!”

“Do not think for even a second…” The older man tipped forward, clenching hands twisting on his chest and forced Will to look at him. “…I have not considered the possibility!”

Stormy blue lifted to stare down ashen flame.

“Was it Peter? Did he do this to you? I will—“

“No! Jesus. Shut up.”

“Will!” A cheery voice cried.

Elias appeared in a gauzy peach tank top and running shorts. A towel was slung around his neck. His entire smile lighting the room. He skipped forward with open arms, oblivious to seething glares and threat of violence.

“You’re home! I’m so glad you’re home.”

Skittering nails sounded on the hardwood in pursuit.

“I’m glad someone is. Not sure if I am…”

“Go to your room, Elias,” Hannibal growled tersely. “Take the dogs with you.”

The priest looked from Will then Hannibal. “But…”

“Now.”

Will gave Hannibal a stern look then pushed a foot of space between them. The older man continued to loom, one hand tangled possessively at his waist, twitching above bandages.

Will reached out. Elias scampered forward and pecked his cheek, shivering against the palpable tension between them.

Mouth pressed to a forehead, he sighed. “Hello, sparrow.” Will waved at two dogs beyond, far more wary of the tension they sensed. “Hello. Your father is in a foul mood. I’ll come for you later. We’ll have a grand time and he can sulk here in his kitchen. By himself.”

Teeth ground together at the mere mention of forced isolation. The priest snorted, oblivious as always, and shooed dogs upstairs, scurrying away to bury himself in books. Chiming notes of Vivaldi floated down the stairwell. Hannibal jerked Will forward by a scooped neckline, low growl seeping out of teeth.

“Was that necessary?” Will rolled his eyes, jerking the sweater back down his stomach. “Any of this. In case you were wondering. Stop snarling at me like a rabid dog.”

“Don’t test me, William.” Thick hands gripped the marble counter top until knuckles cracked. “Where is he? Or have you just returned to lash out at me with your pretty mouth?”

“Not here. And I didn’t come home to do _just_ that. It’s a hobby.”

A fist full of sweater coiled against a chest. He forced himself to let go. Hannibal bit  his tongue, refusing to acknowledge the statement. He wasn’t about to be made to repeat himself. Will knew better. And Hannibal knew better than either of them. He was finding some difficulty scrounging up forgiveness and understanding when the boy was baiting him for a fight. When his vision wavered red, bones aching to spill blood, to make anyone who hurt Will suffered.

The younger man shook his head, shrugging and nodded in a direction behind them. “At a hotel a few miles away. There were…some complications.”

Hannibal watched fingertips touch a corner of a mouth, a brow. Did they appear slightly swollen? A little darker than the skin around them?

“I didn’t want Elias to see him for the first time with bruises. It didn’t seem right. I said he could come by in a few days.”

_Complications. A knife wound. Bruises. Who’s bruises, Will? Yours?_

“Why could you have not said so outright? When you know what kind of mood your sour barbs put me in?”

“Yes—“ Will elbowed at ribs. “–I’m aware the more lonely and worried you are the bitchier you become. I visited you in prison, remember? It’s all my fucking fault. Got it.”

Spinning on a heel, the older man back handed a wine glass perched innocently on the counter. It shattered in the sink. A heavy sigh breathed after. He stalked from the kitchen, fists clenched. They shook inside trousers pockets. Subtle tremors heated his blood. His ability to maintain control was slipping. A scream rumbled in his lungs, unraveling at the seams. Dark need gnawed at the edges of his mind. To main, to kill, to contain himself in the promise of calm that would come after slicing a man up in perfectly symmetrical pieces. The steady press of a blade. Heat of a fire on his face as organs whistled. Lull of the control it afforded him called softly.

He headed for the stairs to be alone. He didn’t want to be alone. He wanted Will. He had wanted him the minute he walked out the front door and every agonizing second that followed after. He stomped up stairs. He wanted him as he always had, with a violent, reckless fury of a man starved.

_All this. Risking your life! My life. Our freedom! For what? For what! Some other man. A sentimental whim that could have cost us everything! And I let you. Why did I let you?_

“ _Hannibal."_ Feet stomped in pursuit, temper flaring. "Stop _._ You can't just keep walking away from me because you don't want to deal with how you feel. How I make you feel.”

The older man gripped the banister for dear life and bit a trembling mouth. Tears stung his eyes. Why couldn’t he be the man who welcomed his partner home with open arms and a flood of relief? Instead of one shrouded in mourning with the idea of his own death holding close. Reminding him how much his own survival depended on the younger man’s. What he would become without it. Without Will.

_Nothing. I would become nothing. And no one would be safe._

“You’re shaking…” Will slid tender hands down shoulders, over elbows, and clasped hands lightly, pressing his face to a spine. He sounded weary, voice a husky murmur, “We won’t have a kitchen, or anything else, if you keep this up. Take me upstairs, would you? I haven’t slept in nearly seventy two hours. Please. You can yell all you want later. I deserve it, alright?”

_What happened to you? Why did I let you go?_

Turning, Hannibal slid hands through silky curls and pulled lightly. Will looked up at him, eyes red and watering, sighing softly. He was struck once again by how frail he looked in the dim light. Shaken by how easily he could have lost him. Could lose him still. How could such delicate skin protect the body of all he loved?

The older man scooped him up and let classical music pull them through their bedroom and to the bath. He gave Will a glass of wine and a sedative. He lay the boy to rest in a mist of lavender and sea salt, washing dirt and caked blood from his hair. When he was certain Will had fallen asleep, he placed him gently on a bed of towels on the bathroom floor. The tremble in his hands returned.

_Is it like the last time?_

He brushed curls delicately from a forehead. He touched a brow. It was swollen. He moved across a knick on a cheek where something had split it open. Something blunt and sharp. He breathed warmth across an upper lip slightly reddened. He smoothed palms down a throat and felt his stomach wrench. His hands matched a faint set of bruising.

_Someone held you down…_

Hannibal snorted a steadying breath, desperate to detach himself from searching a limp body for signs. To find what was done. What he had let happen. He thumbed  crude stitches on an abdomen. He knew the stitch work. Will's handiwork. Always x shapes, never proper loops, when he worked on himself.

_Someone cut you and you stitched yourself up._

He rolled the younger man on his side. He registered light bruising on shoulder blades following a spine, growing brighter at a waist, where he had pushed Will against the counter. He looked away and then back. He pressed two fingers to wide welts. Three of them. They were fresh. Stark. Raised. A new set to add to a catalogue of violence marking his beautiful skin.

“Oh god.”

Crumpling to knees, Hannibal curled around Will’s body, and pressed a strangled choke to the nape of his neck. He lay against him until water dried and skin cooled and rivets of water ran cold through curls. Trying to memorize every part of him. How heavy he felt in his arms. The curve of his body. Silk of his skin. He pressed teary eyes to a shoulder.

_Please…_

What if Will never let him hold him again? For good this time?

He stumbled to his feet. Mind blank. To heal what he could. Covering up what he could not. He could be tender without the sound of a voice dragging out the predator within him howling his failure to protect. He redressed wounds and slipped radiating skin inside silken sheets to cocoon Will in slumber.

_Sleep. You are safe here._

For hours, the older man held vigil at his bedside. A hand in his, fingertips pressed to a threading pulse, and listened to the delicate flutter of breathing. He watched dusk wane and hours stretch velvet across a starry sky. His bones creaked twilight, stirring a rustle of sheets.

“What?” Curls fell across drooping eyes. “Just say it.”

“Why do you insist on dismissing my fears for your safety as if they hold no value?” Hannibal asked quietly, staring out at his reflection drifting across the ocean below their home. “Are my nightmares less real than yours for not having voiced them?”

_When you know very well losing you would kill me? When you know what I did to the men I hunted down of the last man who hurt you?_

Confusion touched glassy eyes. Will sat up. “I’m home, aren’t I?”

He slid his hand free and rose, cheek flinching, worried he might respond in anger.

“ _Wait_.”

The younger man held on. He wouldn’t let go no matter how much the older man pulled. He was afraid he would let go. Let go and never touch him again. Never allow touch. He struggled to breathe. Bruising formed on his wrist. Hannibal crumpled to the bed. The grip relented. Will scrubbed at eyes before curling on his side, silk sheets spilling over delicate ribs and hips. The younger man drew a wrist then palm against his mouth apologetically and placed its steadying weight on a cheek, pink mouth trembling.

“I’m exhausted. Hazy. Bear with me for just a second. I’m sorry, Hannibal, stay.”

“It is selfish of me to ask you to speak.” The older man stroked a cheek with the pad of his thumb, bending to kiss a brow. “We have plenty of time. In the morning perhaps.”

“If I think about you, about how much we have to lose,” Will sucked in his bottom lip and stared at waves reflected on the ceiling of their bedroom. “You know as well as I do sentiment dulls the senses. I can’t think about you if I’m trying to survive. To make it home alive. Don’t you know just by looking at me how goddamn terrified I was every second I was away? How much I needed…to see you. How much I prayed to come home.”

Hannibal gripped the mattress and forced himself to make eye contact, voice hoarse, “Did someone hurt you, William? Did they hurt you like before? Please don’t lie. I need… I need to know.”

_We will not survive it. Not a second time. What have I done? Why didn’t I go with you?”_

The younger man reached for his hand and shook his head once, slowly, breathing out, “No. I would tell you. I had to kill someone. We ran. I’m sorry. I’m still…processing what happened.”

Starlight blue tears fell to a trembling mouth. Hannibal slumped across Will, burying his face against the scar on a stomach. He kissed jagged edges tenderly.

“When I heard the sirens, I thought…” The older man began shakily.

_I lost you. I never want any harm to come to you, Will, not from my hand or another’s. I made you a promise._

He shook his head. He couldn’t say it. Instead a week’s worth of fear and helpless frustration spilled out. Pitiful sobs filled the room.

“You left, William, you left! What if the last words I spoke to you were in anger? What if I never saw you again? What if—”

“Hannibal! It’s okay.”

He clung to Will, leaving trails of red with nails until his hands shook too much and came to rest limply onshoulders. He sobbed louder as a gentle kiss pressed to his forehead.

“Shh…”

“I needed you t-t-to stay. Not like before. Not like—”

“Shhh.” A louder hush touched his temple and then his cheek. “It isn’t like before. I didn’t leave you, Hannibal. You didn’t leave me. It’s fine. I’m all right. Everything is fine. _We_ are fine, baby. Come on…stop crying. You know I had to do this. I had to go.”

“Don’t leave.” He hugged tighter, strained breathing puffed against his ear. “I don’t want you to leave, Will.”

“Hey…hey… let me hold you.” A loving mouth moved across his scalp and pressed to the back of his neck, running fingers through silvery hair. “Darling, I’m _not_ leaving. And I’m not letting go. Never, remember? You know the only way you’re getting rid of me is a divorce. And you’d have to kill me first. Which means you’ll have to find some fucking conviction or follow through, because if you don’t actually kill me, I’ll just be pissed.” Lips curved to a trembling smile. “We’ll end up with twenty more dogs as reckoning. You don’t want that, do you?”

The older man shook a tear stained face against a chest, cry weak. “I no longer have the strength to care, just stay.”

Soft laughter touched his palm. “As much as I love the idea, you don’t mean that. Wherever would our good doctor store his immaculate suits if all his closets were filled with gleeful little puppies gnawing on his expensive shoes? Hm? I don’t need a house of strays. Just one in particular. Well… two now. But mostly you.”

The last part drew out a hiccup of exasperated laughter. Will rolled Hannibal on his back, one hand on a chest and the other reaching to stroke tears from a ruddy face. He smiled down. The older man covered wet eyes with a shield of a forearm, teeth clenched to choke on the weak sound. He hated hearing how many frail parts of him needed, wanted, begged, and lived only for Will.

“Hey…” A cold nose nudged his wrist. “I’m here. Like I promised. This…”

Silken hands slid down his chest, skirted ribs, and pushed beneath the hem of his shirt. They burned hot. They hurt. Buttons slid loose and the shirt parted. His most vulnerable parts exposed to a sharpened kiss and threat of soft words. 

“And this.”

Knees settled around his torso, silken curls followed a mouth kissing up the length of his body. Each press a soft reminder of knowing and cherishing every fragmented part. To Will, Hannibal was neither strong or weak, or predator or prey, just a man, his to hold and care for.

“This…”

A palm slid over his right hand and placed it above a heart. Its melody a quick answering ache.

“It’s all real…” A whisper pressed to his forehead and mouthed down old scars on his arm. “You’re name is Hannibal Lecter.” Soft laughter brushed lower. “It’s some time no one fucking cares about and you are in our bed. I’m real. Here with you right now.”

The older man let Will pull the arm from his face. Compassion filled light eyes moving over him in the dark. The gentlest smile formed and Hannibal reached out to touch it lightly. Afraid if he did it might disappear. But his lips were warm, smooth, real.

Fingertips pressed a mouth, each one kissed, murmuring, “Close your eyes. I’m here now. I’ll keep you safe, love.”

Hannibal tugged weakly at shoulders. Will fell forward and blanketed his body, bare skin and comfort. He sobbed relief. Palms slid around the back of his head as his shook around a smaller body embracing him.

“Please…” Fingers twisted in curls. “I cannot bear to be apart. If I lost you…”

The quietest wisp of ocean offered to hold close, hold him well, and drown him in the depths as lovingly as the boy had dragged him under.

“Shh, shh. I’m home, Hannibal. I’m home.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

_Christ in heaven, what am I doing?_

Slender fingers pitched a brown paper wrapped bouquet of lavender and white lilies on a stone ledge. Tiny white ribbon fluttered then drooped in misting water. He ought to be more careful with it. He touched a money clip in his pocket. It had cost more than he expected. He only had a little money left. Peter circled an ostentatious fountain at the center of a cobblestone drive for a third time. He glared up at the carved statue of Venus then made a face at a tiny group of cherubs floating around her.

_What a mockery of a sentiment you can never know. The god of love. Deity of relentless anguish and heartache. You give man a heart and fill it with suffering._

He leaned forward, studying his reflection in the pool of silver and clouds. A storm of guilt and loss looked back at him. Wavy blonde locks were normally coiled neatly at the nape of his neck. Today they were an untamed mess of frizz from fingers pushing and tugging nervously at them for the duration of a taxi ride. A sour frown pulled ashen lips. What if Elias didn’t want to see him? What if he was turned away with only the sound of his voice and a handful of memories to haunt his remaining days?

 _What if…_ He closed misting eyes. _What if all I have ever loved, found a reason to live for, belongs to another?_

Peter scooped water in palms before roughly smoothing hair. He couldn’t think like that. Until a week ago, he thought he would never see the boy again. Suddenly he was countries away with only a door and walls between them.

_After all these years…_

He began walking in a circle again. Will insisted on taking him to a tailor in the city. He couldn't afford it. He had only a roll of bills brought from the States. He didn't want charity. He hated the sick feeling that pitted his stomach any time someone offered to pay for anything where he was concerned. They had argued.

_"I don't want you're fucking money, Will!"_

_"It's not like that. We want you to have something to start with. Don't you want Elias to see you at your best?"_

_"I used to be a man of some means before you left a body in my home and dragged me from it."_

_"Would you have preferred I let that piece of shit finish what he started and leave so you could take all your belongings with you?"_

_"I ought to break your nose!"_

_"If it will make you feel better, go for it. We've clearly already caused a scene. Maurice, Maurice, I'm sorry. We're leaving."_

They parted ways. Will in a car. Peter on foot. He returned to his hotel room hours later to find stacks of tissue paper bags on the bed and a note with an address and date and time in elegant cursive. Should he even be here? What was he doing?

Monk strap shoes tapped loudly. He couldn’t breathe. He yanked at a navy silk tie at his throat. A delicate tulip knot unraveled. He swore. He fumbled trying to return its rumpled form to a raquette collar edged in fine blue piping. His palms began to sweat. With another curse, he tore the tie off and pitched it towards a bed of drooping roses. Every atom within him screamed to run. Running was far easier to bear than rejection. He didn’t want his last memory to be of Elias happy in a life without him. He was capable of conjuring those images on all on his own. Had done so for many years.

_This is what you wanted. What a spineless coward you are. You don’t deserve him now. And you didn’t then._

He banged a heel of a shoe against stone and scowled at the sky, cursing whatever it was having a laugh at his expense.

A front door swung open and a deep voice called. “Can I help you?”

Peter sucked in a pained breath and froze. “No.” He shook his head and stared straight ahead at the obscene fountain. “I think not.”

_I don’t think anyone can. And who in the name of Saint Christopher has a fountain in front of their home anyway?_

“Are you Peter Moreau by chance? I only ask because you have been pacing our drive for approximately twenty three minutes and I felt it would be remiss not to ask. Or offer you a cup of a tea. Unless you are here simply to admire the grounds?”

“I ought to be leaving.” Shame flushed his cheeks.

_I never should have agreed to come._

“Won’t you come in?”

An older man stood on the stoop, linen towel in one hand, holding the door open with the other. Caramel eyes looked Peter over with a sweep of amusement. He wore a burgundy sweater rolled up thick arms, dark cashmere trousers, and a half apron. There was some kind of white baking powder smudging silver hair. It had to be the man Will spoke of with affection.

_“Hannibal is my husband.”_

Bare feet padded forward as the man stepped to the side, sweeping hand gesturing to a wide foyer behind him. “Please. Do come in.”

Everything he needed was somewhere in that house. But what if what he needed no longer needed him. What then?

Swallowing a lump in his throat, Peter snatched up the battered bouquet and marched forward on stiff legs, announcing abruptly, “They aren’t for you.”

The older man chuckled and let him pass. “I would have never dreamed to presume they were. Shall I place them in water or are you content with plucking at their petals until only stems remain?”

Peter shot a glare over his shoulder, bristling at the smoothly marbled chastisement. He tried not to take in the gleaming wood floors. High arched windows. Fine furnishings placed with care on the inside. At least one or both of the men living here had money. He glared uncomfortably at a pinched expression looking up at him from hardwood. Then he felt a singe of anger. He could never afford to keep Elias in such lavish comfort. He could have, but not now. Now that he had left it all behind. Resentment flinched corners of his mouth. He pivoted on his heel when a familiar voice echoed from nearby.

“Hann—“

Mop of curls wearing a matching apron rounded a corner. Will stopped short. He looked at Hannibal. He looked at Peter. He turned in a full circle and glanced at a grandfather clock behind him.

“You’re four fucking hours early, Peter!” The younger man exclaimed in a loud whisper, striding forward and glancing anxiously up a staircase. “What are you doing here! We haven't told him yet. He’s not—”

Peter followed the panicked gaze, heart clenching. Was Elias up there? Just above him? It seemed fitting. He belonged close to the heavens.

“Hanni?” Sleepy warbling drifted through the house. “Will?”

An aching heart stopped. Lungs shuddered. The room tilted. Peter's knees gave way. The older man stepped forward and gripped him by the elbow to keep him upright. His vision swam. Will shot a panicked glance at Hannibal. Dimly he murmured a half hearted apology for the inconvenience. This was not what they had agreed upon.

Slippers shuffled, flannel sleeves scrubbing eyes. “Do you know where my—“

Elias drifted in wearing an oversized light blue and grey plaid button up. Someone else's clothes. The sleeves hung near fingertips clutching a steaming cup of tea. Small legs bare except for fuzzy slippers. Sandy hair was shaved short at the sides, tousled long on the top and fell over light lilac eyes downcast and heavy with sleep.

“—cashmere blanket it is? I want to lie down before dinner.”

_God in heaven. You are beautiful._

All three of them froze. Hannibal looked at Will. Will watched Peter. Peter clutched the bouquet quaking at his thigh and opened his mouth. He meant to say hello. To drop to his knee and confess he lived every single day in regret. To beg forgiveness. To weep at feet until the angel, his angel, promised to speak to him just once before sending him away. A distant cry of distress worked its way out his throat.

Elias stopped, looked up, pupils dilating wide and gasped. “P-p-peter?”

In an instant pale skin became nearly translucent in light filtering in. A second later a white mug fell and cracked. Its pieces scattered. Delicate lashes fluttered, hand pressed to rose colored lips. Knees buckled. Elias swooned.

Will broke free from the group and rushed forward. He snatched Elias from the glittering wreckage before he could fall, swinging thin legs up and carried him to the foot of the stairs. He held with ease of knowing and intimacy of closeness. Peter stayed rooted in place, looking on with the sensation of an ache, of being replaced.

“It’s okay. All right, just breathe. Shh, shh. Are you hurt? Huh? Did it cut you?”

The priest weakly shook his head, breathing rapid and uneven.

Peter gripped the bouquet, stab of jealousy then remorse working through as Will inspected for cuts. Touching a sacred knee, a creamy calf, high arches of feet. Elias blinked up at Peter in a daze, unable to look away.

Hannibal took a step forward and laid a hand on Will’s shoulder, stooping to say, “We have several herbs we have yet to retrieve from the garden.”

“Go get them then. I'm busy.” Blue eyes pierced up.

“Won’t _you_ help me, William?”

The two men stared at each other. Elias continued to look at Peter as if he were a ghost from another life. Hannibal put one arm around Will’s waist and forcibly escorted him to the front door.

“What are you—hey!”

It shuddered loudly upon their exit, cutting off a terse, “For an empath, you are terrible at reading situations. Honestly, Will—”

It became quiet. He could hear their breath mingling in the space between them. Whisper of dust filtering through the light from windows overwhelmingly loud.

“You…” Peter found his voice, thick and broken. “…look as you did when I saw you last. Nothing has changed.”

_Eight years later and you are just as lovely…_

Time seemed to have flowed around the boy huddled on the staircase. Skin a dewy glimmer of pearl. Body slender and thin, a holy structure of hollow bones allowing him to take flight. Angel masquerading as a small bird. He hadn’t grown an inch from his eighteenth birthday. Barely five foot four. Standing, the top of sandy brown hair grazed Peter’s chest if it was straight on edge. His gaze moved up curving legs tucked beneath a rumpled form to shaking hands clasped in a lap. Metal swinging over a smooth chest caught his eye. He recognized it immediately, breath sticking. It was a hammered cross with a single pearl at its center. A small trinket hanging in a stall of an open air market. He had given it to Elias a few months after they met. It was all he could afford. He had never seen the priest without it. He didn’t expect to see him wearing it now.

_Did you wear it even after I left? In memory? Or as a reminder to avoid men who might hurt you?_

Guilt rattled awake in the corners of his mind. He followed delicate silver chain to a collarbone. He knew freckles rested just beyond it in the shape of a half moon. Strangely the beauty mark matched the violent one on Peter’s chest, mirrored on the opposite side. A hot iron brand given to him by his former employer.

_You used to kiss mine and tell me we were soulmates._

A weak sigh drew his attention to pain drawing soft lips to a frown. His grip tightened on the bouquet. A flush bled from cheeks to a neck and disappeared beneath cloth. He swallowed and looked away. He had forgotten how blood rushed to pale skin when the priest knew he was being watched. He had always been exquisitely aware of other’s emotions and painfully shy.

Elias shuffled on stairs, anxiously drawing fabric closed together on his chest and knees, staring at pink seeping down thighs whispering, “Plenty has changed.” Dainty teeth bit at a bottom lip, light eyes straying to the mess of porcelain on the floor. “I need to—“

Peter crossed quickly and pushed a wiry shoulder insistently. “Not you.”

_Stay where you are. Let me look at you. Don’t leave. Not yet._

“I’ve changed…” The frail boy crumpled as if he had been struck and sucked in a breath.

Violet eyes strayed from gleaming shoes to a bending knee. Peter crouched at the foot of the stairs. He kept his distance. The priest looked near him or passed him. His eyes were not the same. They seemed hardened, no longer a wispy breeze touching fields of lilacs from youth, but smoothed cold like a glimmer of amethyst. A lump rose in his throat.

_What have you seen to fill you with such sadness, little one? Or am I the cause of all your pain?_

He breathed in honeyed vanilla wafting from skin, bending closer, and pressed the bouquet in trembling hands. He could sense the rest of him quaking. He recollected the boy always smelling sweet.

_“How much candy have you stuffed yourself with today?”_

_“None at all!”_

_“They why do you smell of lavender cream?”_

_"A new shampoo?"_

_"Oh, really?"_

_“…I had a piece of cake.”_

_“A piece?”_

_“Two pieces. The second one was yours.”_

_“How selfish. Now you have to let me kiss you or I will be terribly cross.”_

_“But someone will see!”_

_“Not if you’re quick…”_

Elias coiled around flowers for safety, knees drawn to his chest, arm around them. Paper rustled. He touched delicate petals reverently. Peter imagined plucking them free and scattering them over naked skin, kissing where each fell to pale against the boy’s beauty. Pajama sleeves balled and pressed to a mouth. Cheeks flushed pink then red. He remembered that look and felt an ache in his heart.

_Why is it every time I see you, Elias, you are trying not to cry?_

“Time has not touched a single fair hair upon your head,” Peter murmured, fingertip tucking hair behind an ear before trailing a blushing cheek. “Or your skin. Or your heart. You are the same.”

_And you are heart breaking and beautiful because you cannot see it. You do not see you how I see you. Perfect.  
_

His palm slid down a throat swallowing, pressing two fingers to a fluttering pulse. He was frightened. Wavering light eyes looked up then away. Elias was everything he remembered. Frail curves and blurred delicate edges. A nightingale with a clipped wing hovering among cherry blossoms caught on a breeze. He would feel warm like springtime blossoming in his arms. He would taste cool like holy water. His hand began to shake, unable to remember how it felt to kiss the ethereal. To feel whole. And unconditionally loved. He leaned forward on one knee, pushing a hand from a mouth and bent his head to press them together in prayer.

A hand flew up, pushing. “N-n-no.”

Gripping the banister, Elias pushed up on shaking legs and dashed towards a set of doors beyond a living room. Peter ground stinging eyes against a knee. Empty longing outlined where only shadows remained. Ash filled his mouth and lungs. He left the bouquet on the stairs. Apology not uttered and just as easily forgotten to wilt. He drifted after, hands stuffed in trouser pockets and leaned in the doorway of a room lined with bookshelves.

Silvery light outlined a shaking figure standing in front of French doors overlooking a garden below. Elias blended in grey heavens beyond and disappeared for a moment longer out of reach. He had never been worthy of him.

“Am I no longer allowed?” Peter asked, tone cracking inside his chest.

A soft sigh filled the stretch of quiet. “No.”

“You have taken new vows?” He walked closer, fingertips following a desk and came to stand respectfully a few feet to the right.

He could hear brittle breathing of lungs and metallic twist of a cross in fingertips. He could feel the faint hint of skin. He wasn’t sure what he would do, what he would say, if he found out all he worshiped, worshiped another, far greater than he could ever hope to become.

Sad eyes glanced over and Elias shook his head.

_Then who do you worship with such a chaste mouth?_

Peter followed his gaze to two figures sitting outside on a wrought iron bench hand in hand, mop of curls resting peacefully on a shoulder and looking out at the woods. He felt the flinch of his mouth and cold clammy sweat of his palms, heart sinking further. A man of flesh and blood was far too terrible to entertain.

“You belong to these men then?” His voice shook harsh. “Is this what is new? Are you lovers? Or…?”

Watery eyes flicked to the right. “They are my friends.”

“What did he get out of it then? Will?” A hand shot out. “Bringing me here?”

All these years, all this time, and Peter could hear the distinct crack of his malformed heart breaking open.

“Nothing!” Elias cried, looking down at the fist gripping his wrist then back up.

“Do you practice sins of omission now?” Peter accused angrily, stepping closer, his shadow falling heavily across the boy, grip tightening. “You never used to lie. Not to me.”

“I’m not lying,” The priest bit at a trembling mouth, eyes flashing.

“I do not believe a man travels hundreds of thousands of miles for someone he does not love or desire. I know men. You do not.”

“I know enough!” A wrist wrenched free and Elias stumbled towards a fireplace, wheeling around, fists clenched. “You’re behaving horribly! You owe me an apology!”

Peter stalked after and gestured to the men behind him, frown turning to a glimmer of teeth. “Do you let him touch you? Hold you in the night? I saw the way you look at him. You used to look at me that way. You love Will.”

“S-s-stop it.”

“Why send for me, sparrow?”

They rounded a marble coffee table. Tripped over the edge of an ornate rug. Fuzzy slippers slipped on hardwood, bare feet scrambling out of them and away.

“To show me the beautiful life you have built without me. In spite of me. Is this penance? Lay out all I cannot have before me once more? Do you not think I know how little I deserve to even know you exist?”

Fabric fell from a pale shoulder, exposing a thin neck and celestial freckles scattering on a chest.

“Stop it! Just stop.” Elias scampered to the left of a Victorian couch and darted for the door.

“No.” Peter blocked the way and took a step forward. “Answer me.”

“Let me pass.”

“Have I not suffered enough for your god?” Peter snatched the cross and reeled Elias in with it. He wanted to tear it from his neck. If the priest wasn’t his anymore then he didn’t want him to wear it. He growled as small hands pushed weakly at the wall of his chest. “ _For you_?”

“You brought it upon yourself!” Elias shouted, lifting a hand.

A palm burned across the side of his face. Peter reeled from its impact, falling against the back of the couch. He covered his cheek, tears welling as the pain spread. He slid to knees and stared at a corner of the room, blood rushing in his ears. He was used to being struck. Blows far worse than this. The kind that lasted for weeks. Broke skin and bones. He wore patterned skin of a man abused. Just not by someone he loved. Elias had been the only one to do so. To care for him. This hurt far worse.

He pushed at the pain till it grew numb and gazed at horrified eyes, voice mute. “You…hit…me…”

“I-I-I’m sorry. Peter, I didn’t mean—“ A pitiful moan rose. “Oh, I’m going to be sick.”

Peter reached out still on his knees and clung to the hemline of a shirt, demand hoarse, “Ask me to leave.”

_Tell me you never want to see me again. You never wanted me at all. Tell me as I told you all along… I am not good for you._

“I never asked…” Elias whispered, arm looped around heaving ribs, palm pressed over a face to hide eyes.

“Then ask me to stay.”

“I did once.” Tears tangled fingers and slid down a wrist. “You left anyway. You left me. _Why_ did you leave?”

“Because you are sacred to me,” Peter gripped a trembling hand and pressed its palm to the hard edges of his mouth. “Far too pure. Too good. Too steadfast in your belief about the world, about me, to see the truth of it.”

_Too good to me. Too good for me._

“To see what? I was going to leave the church! My faith.” Elias ripped his hand away, precious stone catching fire and flashing down. “I told you. I wanted to be with you. Take care of you.”

Rising shakily, Peter stooped to press small hands to his cheek, his throat, his chest, his heart. To remind himself how gentle they could be. How timid and fragile they made him. They pummeled his chest weakly, twisting and turning, trying to escape him. It made him slump closer, hold tighter, kissing fingertips still hot from striking his face. He would give anything for the boy to touch him. Even if it hurt.

“We agreed. You said you would meet me at the train station. I waited for hours! You never came!” The priest’s voice rose to a grating shout, skin pale and mouth reddened by scraping teeth as he moved away. “Why didn’t you come? I left everything. You left me! You left me just like they did!”

Peter sucked in a ragged breath and tasted bitter abandonment, wincing against a palm. How could he forget? How could he have not remembered the horrific car crash that took the lives of both the boy’s parents?

“I waited. I thought you loved me! But it was all a trick! You never loved me. You only wanted an easy fuck and—“

 _“_ _Ça suffit!”_ Peter lunged, roaring. (Enough!)

Elias tripped and fell on a wing backed chair, tears streaking cheeks, pooling at the base of a throat.

“You were never such a meaningless _thing_ to me! I loved you, Elias! Respected you!” He buried nails in velvet cushions, shouting, “How dare you! When you know how difficult it was for me to be near you. Why it hurt for you to touch me! Is this who you are now? Cruel? Like the men I once knew?”

A broken cry rose to a wail and the boy shrank, curling to a small ball.

_I’m sorry…I shouldn’t have said that…_

Peter drooped unsteadily to his knees. Sobs quieted. He pulled the long shirt down shivering thighs and looked away. He wanted to touch his face. Hold thin hands. Kiss his mouth and promise whatever he had to, whatever he could, whatever stopped the pitiful broken sound. He gripped arms of the chair, forehead falling near a knee in contrition.

_Maybe it is too late. I waited too long to seek your forgiveness…_

“There was a chill in the air when it started to rain. I was there. Waiting for you and…” He felt a pitiful whisper rise to a steady stream of consciousness. “Then you appeared. An angel with a pale yellow suitcase. You had stolen someone’s clothes. Ratty jeans and a faded peach sweater stained by bleach. I had never really seen you out of your robes.”

He felt cold rain on his face, cigarette burns on fingertips, watching agonized puffs of breath turn grey and then white. Peter winced as the memory returned to him.

“How much smaller you looked in their clothes. How small. How frail. Barely eighteen… and you were _so scared_. Shivering, watching the clock and waiting for me. I wanted you to run. From me. I waited.”

He heard the crackling announcement of arrivals and departures buzz over speakers on the platform. Hid behind a cement pillar on the other side of the tracks. Where he belonged. Three hours past.

“Train after train after train. There you stood, soaking wet clothes clinging to the cross hidden beneath. And when you began to cry I…”

He saw Elias slump on top of the suitcase, cheeks red, sobbing against wrists as a group of passengers rushed around him to board a train. They didn’t even see the boy doubled over in pain. He felt the ugly twist of his heart in the present begging to throw himself—the boy from the past— in front of the train, rush across the tracks, and press his mouth to a shaved head.

_Go to him. Go to him. Don’t leave him. He needs you._

“I watched you leave. Stumble through the streets. Fall inside the stoop of the church as three men, your real family, took you in as they had when you were a child. Then I left for America.” Peter turned his head and breathed the last words against a knee. “I had to know…you were better off without me.”

“T-that wasn’t your decision to make!” Elias jerked, yanking him up by a fistful of hair. “You selfish fucking prick!”

He couldn’t help the smile coil on his mouth, brows rising ever so slightly. He had never heard the boy swear. It sounded gentle like flower petals. Strangely devoid of sin or concern. Almost eloquent. Carnations bloomed bright on a face, pale mouth trembling, eyes wide with shock and a flicker of hurt. He was so lovely angry. Divine in his rage. Who was this Elias? This one willing to fight against him? He had always been strong, much stronger than Peter, but this was different.

“ _Dis moi amour…”_ Peter cupped a tear soaked cheek and shook his head. “What life could I have given you? No money. No prospects. No skills except lying on my back or on my knees. Hmm?”

(Tell me, love…)

“You didn’t have a choice then! I had some money saved. I said—”

A weakened smile lifted. “You had pennies. How long would it have lasted?”

“I would have—“ French stumbled from a quivering mouth, blunt and rigid from disuse. “ _Je t'ai aimé! Pourquoi n'étais-je pas assez?_ ” 

(I loved you! Why was I not enough?)

He touched fluttering lashes, a cheek, a clenched jaw and smoothed a frown from lips. His voice a wisp of dandelions trailing off in the wind, taking promises to mend them far away. It made him want to weep.

“You would have what?”

"I-"

Peter clamped a hand over the priest’s mouth, unable to bear the sound a moment longer. It was too sweet, too gentle, too earnest. Too beautiful. He should have never been allowed to hear it.

He whispered fiercely, “Watched me whore myself out when we were forced into it, driven to it, not by men, but by circumstance? How softly you would plead for me not to. Even as you grew weak. And your bones began to show, whispering, ‘Peter, stay with me. God will provide.’ Even as I—the man who did not deserve even your simple kindness—could not? What choice did I have?”

_I wanted to give you a life. A good life. How could I have given that to you then? Twenty three years old without a penny to my name and a broken heart begging to give you the entire world. How could I give you a home, love, a life when I had never known them?  
_

Wet tears beaded delicate eyelashes, voice muffled. “He would have.”

“The God you would have forsaken for a whore? I think not.”

Elias made a pitiful noise in the back of his throat and shook his head, rush of fresh tears wobbling. He saw the light in his eyes and couldn't bear to see love buried within them. What had he ever done to deserve it? Elias had only ever wanted to help him. Peter curled fingers on his thighs to keep from reaching out. He was too good.The priest had never looked at him with anything except compassion. He treated him with kindness. Never made him feel like less than a man, a human being, deserving. Of love. Of understanding. Of a safe home.

_You were my home. You are...everything to me. If I loved you the way you loved me, I would leave you here in your happy home and ask you to never think of me again.  
_

Peter pushed up on knees and cupped the boy's face. He wanted to kiss him, goodbye lodged in his throat and turning to ash in his mouth. He considered where to kiss something holy looking back at him as if neither of them existed. Where could he touch without tainting him? Could he do so without causing him irreparable pain or harm? Was it even possible? The divot of dusk lips beckoned. Too forward to caress. His cheek too lovely to mar. Peter leaned in and pressed a forlorn mouth to the center of a forehead and sighed desperate longing against it.

“I would have done it for you. You would have hated me for it. I would have hated myself. And I did. For a time…but I would have done it for you, _mon petit oiseau_.”

(Little bird.)


	6. Chapter 6

Timid knocking rasped on a door. It creaked as pink damp skin disappeared beneath the drape of a crème loose knit sweater, falling to knees. Elias felt loneliness drift with each caress of fabric and knew who was watching. He shivered, breath hitching. His eyes hurt from crying in the shower. He had needed to get away. Just for a second. To process. His skin burned from the overwhelming sensation of touch. Of being touched. He had grown used to solitude. Moments of human contact were rare. More so by someone he never thought he would see again. Affection flooding a voice, rang in his ears, calling him a little bird. This is not how he imagined seeing Peter. Not like this. He looked over his shoulder.

Peter hunched uncomfortably in the frame opening on his bedroom. He was far too tall to lean against it. The older man was holding the bouquet again, dress shirt considerably more wrinkled, curls a wiry array of light wisps. Petals lay at his feet where they had been plucked free. Each one an apology. A plea for absolution. Guilt wrinkled his nose. Elias nearly stooped to gather each one to his chest, to press them to his mouth, and pretend it was Peter he kissed. His palm print still burned a sloping cheek.

_How could I have been so unkind to you? After all the unkindness the world has made you suffer? When did I turn my back on forgiving and forgetting?_

“Sorry…” Peter mumbled and pushed at hair, gaze darting to the floor. “You were gone for so long. I…”

His heart hurt. He didn’t remember the older man’s voice this way, drifting with uncertainty, riddled with self doubt. He remembered it resolute, strong, and terse. In rare moments, soft and teasing. But never light and fragile like glass. He lingered on the voice, the one he had never heard, trailing off. Hearing all he was unable to say.

_Did you think I left? As you did?_

“Shall I let you finish dressing? I should…wait downstairs. I’m sorry.” A watch flashed in the light. “I should go. I shouldn’t be here. I ruined everything. I—“

Elias hurried forward and caught him by the hand. Peter froze at the sudden contact. He pulled lightly. If he let go, if he gave him the chance, he knew the older man would leave and he would never see him again. Peter ducked in, fragile gaze skirting across the towel discarded on the floor. His gaze moved to a plush four post bed cast in light from a bay window. He looked down. How small his hand looked in the older man’s. It was cold and trembling like the first time he held it. They had only felt warm when Elias had covered Peter’s mouth with both their hands to quiet his screaming during night terrors.

* * *

_“You live here?” Peter asked skeptically, perched on an edge of a mattress._

_“Well…”_

_Elias looked around at four modest walls doused in grey night. A single wood cross hung above the doorway for adornment. A small plain bed was pushed against a corner near a thin stained glass window. Three drawers lined its boxy frame beneath a mattress. There was a desk on the opposite side with a single lamp unlit and a bible._

_“Yes. Where did you think I lived? I know it isn't much.”_

_He turned to push the door closed and slid the bolt in place._

_“Wait!” A frantic shout._

_Whirling around, Elias pressed fingers to lips. “Shh! You have to keep your voice down! They could throw me out if they find you.”_

_Peter stood stock still, hands clenched, pale and wild eyes. He swallowed hard. “Please…” His voice came out a scratchy plea. “Could you leave it open? Unlocked at least?”_

_With a nod, the priest shut the door quietly. He turned the handle to show him it remained unlocked. The older man slumped to the bed and released a shaky breath. He padded over and wrapped a blanket around his shoulders. He plucked a pillow and curled up on the floor. Smoothed stone held a chill. His robes would keep him warm. The mattress creaked as the body on top of it tossed and turned for several minutes. Weary sighs echoed. Feet shuffled near._

_Elias opened his eyes. Peter flopped on the floor and drew the blanket over them both, lips a rigid line of anxiety. He flopped on his back. Then his side. Then on his back again. He rolled, facing the opposite wall. The priest could feel him shaking beneath the blankets. He reached out to touch a shoulder then withdrew. He shouldn’t touch him. He didn't like to be touched. He didn’t want to frighten him away._

_“I cannot sleep in places I am unfamiliar…” Peter murmured._

_The priest lifted on an elbow and said, “You know you’re safe here. This is a safe place. You know I won’t touch you, don’t you? I promise.”_

_Silvery eyes welled tears then tipped over a shoulder. “Will you hold my hand, sparrow? I am unaccustomed to sleeping in the dark.”_

_He thought of the narrow attic Peter had been kept in, all lights blazing bright as he slept. He knew now what came for him behind locked doors in darkness. He wished with a single kiss to a swollen cheek, a split lip, and black eye he could take away everything that had been done to him.  
_

_“O-okay…” Elias drew a calloused hand over his chest, cupping it between his, and squeezed gently. “How’s this?”_

_The older man nodded, eyes slipping closed. His shaking subsided. Elias fell asleep to the sound of shallow breathing and a tightness in his chest. Is this what it felt like not to fall asleep alone?_

* * *

The bedroom door remained ajar. Elias thumbed knuckles gingerly. He wanted Peter to know, to remember, he could leave if he needed to. If he wanted to.

_But I don’t want you to go…_

The priest led him to the bed and patted a grey damask duvet gently. Peter folded long limbs gracefully and sat, looking at the opposite wall, away from a cascade of violet eyes taking him in. His skin shimmered as a face turned, snowy druzy quartz in the light and agate in the shadow, an earthen ghost lurking in ancient ruins. His eyes were puffy as if he had been crying. Faint creases drooped near long lashes and touched a mouth in frown lines. He looked dimmer somehow, a stone weather worn by elements of time. The sun caught fine silvery threads woven in a floral pattern of a dress shirt, high collar held tight on a neck. Tailored sleeves were clipped at wrists with pearl and opal cufflinks. Folds of crepe draped elegantly across a chest and arms. He sighed inwardly.

_Are you still hiding your scars beneath fine fabrics, Peter? Or just trying to convince me you are someone else?_

The bouquet rustled pitifully. Peter was shaking. Wax paper shifted to rest on knees peeking out from a sweater. Elias curled toes on carpet, watching it drift from knee to the bend of his leg and move to stroke his thigh. He watched long fingers twitch, grey eyes tilted to watch the path it took, soft hem drawing up to expose creamy skin. His breath quickened. A stab of want filled his belly. His mind flooded with images. Of strong hands up his sweater and gripping his thighs, pulling his legs open to touch what stirred beneath. He swallowed a moan.

Elias took the flowers and unfurled the length of satin ribbon from brown paper. He set the bouquet on a nightstand next to three wax vanilla pillar candles. He ran a blonde curl through index finger and thumb hesitantly. Peter flinched as hair was pushed to the side, falling down the curve of his spine. He tied hair back with the ribbon, exposing stark silvery moons flooding with fear. Peter didn’t look older despite faint lines creasing rose gold skin. Only weary. Lost. Terrified once more by their closeness. He pulled a single curl loose and placed it tenderly on a crinkled brow, drifting towards a cheek.

“Where are your glasses?” Elias asked curiously.

He remembered them. Thin, wiry, gold.

“My…” Peter touched the bridge of his nose, confusion wrinkled a brow. “I…I must have lost them. Or forgotten them.”

“Do you no longer need them?”

“I…we left in a hurry.”

A frown tugged, gaze straying to the other side of the house where he knew Hannibal and Will waited outside. He had more questions than answers.

“How long have you been here?”

“About a week…” Fingertips fluttered against a knee, moving to touch a bare leg, quickly falling. “Not long at all. It was… meant to be a surprise I think. I…was to come for dinner. I couldn’t wait.” Agonized eyes darted up then away. “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life waiting. Sometimes I wonder if you were ever real?”

The priest made a pained noise and touched just above the collar where he knew a jagged flesh wound rested beneath. A hash mark left by a knife. Elias worried a bottom lip between teeth and sat carefully beside him, placing one hand timidly over ones wringing in a lap. They stilled as soon as he did. The older man shuddered, slowly relaxing. His touch usually calmed him.

“Do you have someone…back home?” Elias bit his inner cheek, squeezing eyes shut.

_Did you find someone else you could bear to be touched by? Held in the night? Someone who was able to do more than simply hold you?_

A neck cracked softly, heading shaking no. He pressed their arms together and lay his head on a shoulder, letting out a shaky breath. What was he supposed to say? He could hardly believe it was real. He had dreamt for years of seeing Peter again. Here he was. Trembling as much as Elias and staring blankly at their memories of who they were, of who they were to each other, in the distance.

“Did someone make you…?” His voice rushed in a whisper. “When you went to America. You don’t have to tell me. Not if you don’t want to.”

“No…” Peter covered slender hands with wide ones, engulfing them in cold, and held on until they stopped trembling. “No. I had nothing when I reached New York. Except for what you gave me. For about a year, I lived on the streets…darkening doorsteps and back alleyways.”

Elias pressed closer, struggling to breathe, eyes burning and held on. His hands numb. It still felt like an ocean was between them still. Could they ever be as they once were?

“It was difficult to find work without papers. I chose them when I could afford to. Always public. Never private. I couldn’t…not after everything.”

Elias winced. He knew who ‘them’ referred to. Even worse he knew what ‘everything’ meant. He had seen enough of the older man’s body, heard his incoherent screams in the night for too long, not to understand what had been done to him. The kind of money, the things men paid for, to do to him. His stomach churned. He couldn’t imagine Peter returning to the only life, only work, he had ever known. For what? To survive? It made him sick. He promised to help him. He had helped so many others. But not him. Why had he let him go? Forced him back to that horrible existence?

_Is it my fault, Peter?_

His mind flashed to memories of Peter when they had first met. They were both young then. Boys protecting one another. The church had sent Elias to hand out copies of the bible, each one accompanied by a pamphlet about where and how to find them, to the working boys and girls in the city. Offering a hot meal, sanctuary, a safe place to sleep. One dreary Saturday morning, he had seen Peter leaning on a stoop of dilapidated building smoking a cigarette, standing tall and unashamed.

* * *

_“E-excuse me, may a borrow a moment of your time?”_

_“A moment?” A square jaw clenched, piercing grey eyes searing through a small boy quaking in pristine robes. His accent was thick, rich like the plume of smoke drifting from a cruel mouth. “I don’t work for free, kid. And from the looks of you, you can’t afford more than a moment.”_

_“I j-just…if you need a place to stay or…” The priest fumbled a wood cross on his neck, wide violet eyes wavering, holding out a pamphlet. His hands shook. “We’re here to help.”_

_“Help? You are a queer one, aren't you?” The older man snorted, ashing the cigarette, gaze straying to another man wearing an all black suit lingering on the steps. “You see something you want, mon cher?”_

_“Don’t you want to talk to me?”_

_The man ignored him. Elias watched slender fingers stroke lapels, flirtatious smile flickering. The smile didn’t touch his eyes. They remained blank and glassy. He was far too sad, too beautiful to be in this kind of place._

_“Peter!”_

_The older man flinched and let go of a suit jacket reluctantly. The businessman scurried away._

_“Let’s go.” A burly man stepped out, shaved head gleaming. “You got a client.”_

_Peter watched the small boy with curious detachment. He was still standing his ground, waiting._

_Smoke blew defiantly over a shoulder. “In a minute.”_

_Meaty fists whipped forward and dragged the older man back by long curly hair, growling, “You want another reminder who you work for? He’ll be a lot less nice about it than I was. You want that?”_

_Peter’s lip twitched a snarl and shook his head, looking away from the priest still watching. He didn’t look afraid. Elias was. He was shaking. He didn’t want the man to go. To be taken away. He was afraid what would happen to him. For him._

_“Good.” A shove sent him sprawling in to a house. “Go.”_

_A few days later, Elias found himself standing in front of the house on Hilvant Ave, bible in one hand, a clip of money in the other. He had thought of nothing else except the beautiful man disappearing inside it. Every waking moment he felt dread. Worried for his safety. He had to see him again. To know he was okay. He pushed the door._

_Cigarette smoke and something more earthy fogged around him. He coughed, eyes stinging. Half naked bodies of men and women sprawled on tattered couches. He tried to keep his gaze on the ground. Grey eyes tilted up from behind the red bud of cigarette. Elias froze. The man, Peter, wore a deep navy silk robe covered in an exotic floral design. He got to his feet and strode over quickly, eyes wild._

_“What are you doing here! You can’t be here. Go.”_

_“I-I came to t-talk. I had to know.”_

_Blonde curls fell away from a neck as Peter took him by the shoulders and shoved him towards the exit. “You had to know what? Get out here! Êtes-vous fou?”_

_(Are you insane?)_

_The priest gasped. Angry red and purple palm prints circled the circumference of the older man’s neck._

_“T-t-to know you—“ He reached out before he could stop, touching bruises. “—you were okay. Who did this to you?”_

_Peter’s hands clenched his shoulders, eyes snapping shut with a hiss. “Don’t.”_

_"Why won't you come with me? Just leave!"_

_“What’s going on here?” A voice boomed._

_The older man rolled his mouth to a thin line and snatched the roll of bills, tossing them over a shoulder. “Doing the Devil’s work. Leading a man of the cloth astray.”_

_“You have an appointment.”_

_“Not yet I don’t. I’m on break. Now fuck off.”_

_A cigarette ashed threateningly. "Expect to be reminded of your manners later, Peter."_

_The older man dragged Elias under his arm and hurried him down a musty corridor, whispering, “Stupid boy. You have any idea what they’ll do to me?”_

_He wanted to ask what that meant. What would they do? He watched the smooth pull of silk as Peter led him up a flight of rickety stairs, moving with a fluid grace of a man used to leading strangers to his room. He stared straight ahead. Never once looking back to see if the priest followed or resisted. When the door closed and locked, Elias found himself shoved up against it, glittering eyes burning through him. Hands tore the bible from him and pitched it away. Palms rucked up his robes and smoothed bare legs._

_“W-what are you doing?” Elias cried against an ear, lips moving down his throat._

_“This is what we do here, frightened bird. You don’t know me. I don’t know you. I think of you for as long as I’m paid to…” A harsh growl and a push sent him sprawling on a mattress on the floor. “You’ve a half hour. Then you are nothing to me.”_

_A precious mouth trembled. “I just wanted to talk.”_

_"We don’t talk here.” Large palms slid up thighs.  
_

_“T-t-to see you then. I had to see you.”_

_“You…like to watch then, do you?” Peter tipped his chin, disdain narrowing eyes, and tugged at the belt on his robe._

_“Please! I only—“_

_Silk formed a puddle on dusty floorboards. Elias covered his mouth to keep from crying out in shock, looking up then away and then back. Peter rolled a neck, fists clenched at his side, struggling to keep a snarl from lifting over teeth. A brand in the shape of a half moon was an inch below a clavicle. It was raised, burned in to the flesh. Fresh and old bruising painted a war torn body. Shallow scars knicked a tensed abdomen and scuffed broad shoulders. Deeper, jagged scars wound from the breadth of his back, stretched over shoulder blades, and fell further still. Clusters grew more horrid in number near hipbones then further down—hash marks, twisting knots, and hideous initials—before ending abruptly above the bend of thighs._

_“Don’t you look at me like that…” Color blanched knuckles white, voice shaking out. “Don’t you dare look at me with pity, choir boy. You have no right.”_

_The small boy drifted forward and pointed at the mattress, hoarsely whispering, “Please.”_

_A jaw ticked. Peter stretched out across it naked on his stomach, watching carefully, chin on the crook of his arms. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing? Have you even been with another man? Or woman?”_

_Elias shook his head, mouth thin and white, and picked up the robe. He made the older man sit up, trying his best not to touch him, before draping silk around his shoulders and arranging it over legs. They sat side by side in silence. The older man pushed a palm between legs, dragging white robes with it._

_The priest clasped it, squeezing once, before moving away. “No.”_

_“What do you want from me?” The older man watched the glint of a cross out of the corner of his eye, staring down at where a hand had touched his tenderly._

_“I don’t want you to be here.”_

_“You don’t even know me. You’re just a stupid kid.”_

_“I want—“ Peter flinched. Two small hands covered his and brought them to rest over a faint heartbeat, earnest violet eyes looking up. “—to help you. Promise you’ll let me help you, Peter.”_

_His name sounded almost reverent on delicate lips. Cherished even. Who the hell was this boy?_

_“And if I don’t want help?”_

_Sad lilac eyes filled with tears. Peter's heart wrenched violently as if he had just drawn a hand across his face to bruise it. Something violent and unholy unraveled with him at the thought. God help any man who even raised his voice to the boy. He would destroy them. He never wanted harm to come to him._

_Light filtered through a broken window in the attic and washed skin brilliant pearl white. Peter squinted at a reflection of stars freckling cheeks and leaned in. It would be cruel to call him beautiful. He was too pure. Skin snowy and touch feather light._

_“I think I’ll call you _mon petit oiseau__ _,” The older man murmured. “It’s time to go. Fly away.”_

_“Let me help you. I’m not going until you promise.”_

_A timid hand reached out and stroked a delicate lip, perfect and untouched, reply soft. “You can’t. Leave this place. Worship your god. Forget about me.”_

_“P-please…” Elias slid a hand over Peter’s and leaned in to the caress, gaze searching his. “I want to. I know I can. I’ll come back. I’ll take you with me.”_

_“I don’t believe you.”_

_“Have a little faith.”_

_“And who shall I place my faith in?”_

_“God?”_

_“No.” Laughter lifted long shadows in the room. “Not Him. What is your name, little bird?”_

_“…Elias. My name is Elias.”_

_* * *_

 

Week after week, Elias returned to that horrible place. Peter threatened to throw him out, to burn what little money he had, to pin him to the bed and touch him. He screamed he never wanted to see him then begged him never to return, praying the curious boy would find a way to his room and ignore his requests. They were the quietest, most gentle moments Peter had ever known. Each time they sat, as they were now side by side, saying little to nothing. He never touched the priest again and refused to let him see abuse mottled fresh beneath his clothes. He shut him out entirely if he was too weak to move, their backs pressed to either side of the door, listening to one another breathing. He would keep the room dark when he could not hide the occasional black eye. Elias would sit closer to him then, head tipped on his shoulder, murmuring about his life before the church. He grew used to the soft whisper comforting him.

Most times they simply sat, pressed together only at the shoulder, and watched the sun set. Until the night Elias begged him to leave with tears in his eyes. They tore boards off the broken attic window, scaled the roof to the sounds of someone trying to break in not far behind. They ran. Elias hid Peter in a humble room on the second floor of the church on the far side of the river. They found a meager studio flat several weeks after. It was all either of them could afford. Peter only ventured out at night, hood drawn, knife pocketed. The boy would sneak away after evening prayer to be with him, groceries in one hand and a pile of books in the crook of an arm. It took months of sitting and lying near one another before Peter let Elias hold his hand for more than a second. Longer still for the older man to reach out and willingly touch him.

He continued to look over his shoulder. Live in fear. The only way to be truly safe was to start over. Leave the country. He protected the boy he loved from himself, from the life that followed him, the best way he knew how. Left Elias in the rain and far behind him.

_I couldn’t take you with me, sparrow._


	7. Chapter 7

“Are you listening to me?” A timid hand brushed a smooth chin.

The priest shook his head, lost in a daze of memory, gaze far off.

“Shall I go? If I have upset you, I will show myself out.”

“No! P-p-peter,” Elias cupped hands to his face and kissed a forehead, eyes misting. “Why are you telling me this? Do you want me to picture every man who ever hurt you? Then? And after?”

“They were not all bad. I found good people. Your kind of people. God fearing. I was very ill…the cold had gotten in my lungs by then but…” A chin turned to rest on the top of head. “They took me in. Helped me. Got me a work visa. Real, honest work. They let me keep their books and fed me. I volunteered with them when I grew stronger. We ended up fighting for the same cause you know?”

“What do you mean?”

“You in Denmark with your flock and me in a strange city with new friends, speaking for those who remain tormented, faceless, without a voice.” Peter offered a strained smile. “You kept fighting for people like me. I searched the papers from time to time to catch a glimpse of you.”

Brushing fingertips over knuckles, Elias murmured. “Not well enough. Not enough for you.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Don’t tell me what to say.”

Space returned between their bodies. Elias was immediately cold. He hated it. The older man sighed and pushed anxiously at his hair.

“I was offered a chief accountant position at their branch in Seattle. Good hours. Good money. For a good cause. I want you to know I changed, sparrow.” Sucking in a steadying breath, Peter timidly slid a hand around a small waist and braced himself for another push. “Then…this man, this stranger, shows up at my door years later…saying he knows you. I thought. I thought they had found me. I thought they would take me back. But then he—“

“Will,” Elias interrupted, placing his left hand over the one at his waist, wavering gaze sliding up. “His name is Will.”

He blinked. _Don’t let go._

“Yes, I know, darling. He is shockingly difficult to forget. Self righteous pain in the ass." Grey eyes rolled. "Will…begins to tell me about you. Then I heard your voice…” Peter held a little tighter, tears pricking eyes, voice dropping low. “Here I am.”

Elias tipped his head, searching a thoughtful gaze. "You...were there when Will called?"

The older man nodded.

"Why, why didn't you say anything?"

"I couldn't." A hand shook against his knee. "Hearing your voice again was too much. How could I call out to the divine?"

The priest shivered inside the embrace, fingers tightening and releasing the hem of his sweater. All the hours of isolation and loneliness, falling asleep in an empty bed, thinking of Peter and crying himself to sleep. When he didn’t know where he was. Or even if he was alive. Not understanding what he had done to make him leave. It edged into his voice and scattered bumps of longing and pain across his skin.

“I-I-I shouldn’t have hit you.”

“Did you?” Peter pressed into the palm on his cheek, eyes drifting closed. “I thought those mere glances were kisses from cherubs above.” His fingertips fell from the nape of a neck and touched shoulder blades lightly, murmuring, “Are they still there? Your wings?”

Elias shivered. Peter was referring to a cluster of freckles mirrored on each side of his spine. When they used to lie in the dark, he would touch them and ask if he were an angel. An ache shook through him.

“I never stopped thinking about you. I never stopped…” The priest whispered, choking on a rush if tears and cradled a mournful face. “I devoted myself to the work. Every time we went in for a rescue, I thought…but it was never you. You were never there. I didn’t know where to find you! I was so alone.”

A timid push sent Elias falling to the bed. He shivered when Peter leaned over, brushing frantically at tears, eyes wild. “I never wanted you to be alone. I wanted you to have a good life. A better life. Not _my_ life. I wanted to give you shelter. Protect you.”

The priest shook his head, rubbing stinging eyes, curling knees to his chest and tipped to the side. “You were just a boy too.”

“So were you. And I asked far too much of you. Shall I ask for forgiveness?” A sullen mouth brushed his forehead. “Penance then?” It moved to the curve of his neck and pressed tenderly behind an ear. “May I ask for something else entirely?”

A weak shrug answered. Peter stretched beside him, molding to his spine, and drawing Elias to lie against his chest. He held shaking arms and breathed softly, pushing cashmere with a chin to expose freckles.

“You cared for me when I could not. I wanted to die. You refused. Fed me. Clothed me. Gave me your bed to rest. Even when I fought.”

The priest shivered as hands tried to turn him, squeezing eyes shut, breath stuttering, giving in. His heart hammering louder and louder.

“Look at me?”

He opened them to find still water grey of a stream washing over him, through him, and let it carry him forward and press close to a chest. He balled fabric in fists and tucked knees to a flat stomach.

“You saved my life. Not God. Not the son or the holy ghost. _You_! Elias, you are all I have ever had good in my life,” Peter said, gripping his face and brushing cool lips over eyelids then cheeks. “You took an abused, pitiful creature and showed him love. Gave him a home. You never asked for anything. When he thought his only worth was—“

“Don’t.” Elias shook his head, pleading. “I can’t…please don’t say it.”

Peter pushed back and tipped a chin up, studying crippling sadness on a mouth. He touched with fingertips before drawing knuckles down a face, brow creasing with concern.

“Are you still plagued to experience the suffering of others?” He asked softly. “Do you still feel their pain more acutely than your own?”

"I feel responsible."

"Elias Svendsen!" The older man grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him once. "Don't you _ever_ tell me you feel even an ounce of responsibility for my life or experiences. They are my burdens to harbor and resent, not yours. I will not allow you to hold them as you once held me. You promised never to look at me with pity!"

Lilac eyes slid away. “All I’ve ever wanted was to bring you comfort. I couldn't even do that.”

“More evidence then that I am still a bad man.” Peter traced tips of small ears and drew Elias closer, watching the tremble of a mouth. “An unrepentant sinner. I smoke far too much. I am foul mouthed and have a temper. I am blindly jealous and short sighted where you are concerned. My sleep is intermittent and disturbed. I still dream.”

“Still?” The priest asked.

“Yes.” Peter nodded, gaze distant, voice a patter of rain on wildflowers. “And I will frighten you when I wake. You will cry when we fight. What kind of a mortal sin is it to cause an angel to weep, hm? Do you really want to go back to a man like that?” He nuzzled a neck, despair sighing against it. “You deserve the tenderness of a man willing to scoop you from the mere threat of a broken cup and carry you to safety. Will… he is a good man. He takes care of you.”

“I take care of him too,” The priest protested, mouth thinning. “Just like I took care of you. But you won’t let me! He does!”

“I told you I have changed, but I can’t promise I won’t hurt you.”

With a jab of an elbow, Elias wrestled free and pinned Peter to the bed, growling, “ _They_ hurt you. I…won’t. I won’t let anyone hurt you! Not ever again. How many years are you going to make me wait on that platform in the rain for the only the thing I have ever needed? Why do you have to be so stubborn! You make me so angry.”

“See. I’m not good for you.” Fingertips slid down a chain and twirled a cross absently.

The cross was flung behind a neck, slipping beneath a sweater to droop on shoulder blades, forgotten. “I still don’t care. Stop telling me what I want!” A fist thumped a chest. "I want you, Peter, I just want you!"

“Let me care for you, Elias, and be yours once again?” Peter scratched nails gently through short hair and pulled the boy forward, breathing out as a trembling hands planted on his chest, smoothing wrinkles. “There was never another. I have no one. I have only ever loved you. Just you, my little bird.” Glimmering stars fell upon a quivering rose. “May I… kiss you now? Please?”

 

*

_Fingertips trailed a thick scar running down an arm. “I would like to kiss you.”_

_Elias startled awake to dim candlelight to find Peter sitting at the edge of the bed, one hand on his arm and the other brushing his cheek. He shook his head, mouth dry, still paralyzed by sleep. No one had ever kissed him. He couldn’t. Not now. He made promises. Had vows to uphold. Pale yellow curls fell over broad shoulders then danced across a chest heaving for oxygen. Hair pushed to the side, blanketing a crescent brand. The older man slid one palm underneath his head and traced buzzed hair against his scalp. He couldn’t breathe._

_“You are…” The pad of a thumb slid on a tulip mouth. “…so beautiful, sparrow.”_

_Peter leaned in. He kissed a forehead. Ran his mouth across a brow. Pressed faint warmth to a left cheek then a right. He drew a dainty hand to his mouth, kissing each knuckle and fingertip reverently. Falling stars watched the way a shiver raced from head to toe, pink blush creeping after. Elias clutched at thin white jersey to hold closer or push away. He could feel heat of skin, a tremble of uncertainty answering his own._

_The older man nuzzled his cheek, whispering, “I am going to kiss you now, Elias, and ask for forgiveness when our lips part.”_

_Peter drew close. He shook harder. Tiny pitiful noise squeaked free. Fingers splayed. Grey eyes slipped closed. Elias stared wide eyed as breath fluttered against his cheek, his chin, his mouth. He could almost taste harsh edges of a pouting mouth hovering just above his. Then a mere brush so light he almost didn’t feel it._

_“I love you, you know…”_

_Elias flung forward, arms around a neck, and fumbled to find a mouth through a rush of tears. He clambered in to a lap, letting thick legs and arms envelope him. His mouth welded to a cooler one. He kissed Peter with both hands wound in his hair and a plea never to let go trapped in his lungs. There was a haze of utter silence. A blossom of warmth. As his eyes drifted closed, he felt the silhouette of home embrace him._

*

Years. It had been years since their fist kiss. Years since he had been set adrift once more in the world without a place to truly call home. Waking each day to be reminded of the ache resonating from the loss of his parents and the boy he had loved. Until Will and Hannibal had taken him in. They were his new family. But Peter…

_You’re everything to me._

“Elias, if you don’t want me to kiss you, I would understand. I waited too long.”

A tiny cry resounded, Elias crumbled forward, running hands through curls, and sighed as cool lips slid over his, mouthing apologies lightly.

He kissed a sharp mouth, a cheek, peppered kissed over a face. “Peter, I’ve missed you so much.”

The older man moaned something incoherent as a tongue darted out inquisitively. His knees snapped a wide chest, smooth fingertips sliding inside his sweater, splaying beneath shoulder blades, thumbs resting against a heaving chest. Elias never felt more vulnerable, more small, and safe than when Peter held him. He licked in to a mouth until it fell open with a surprised gasp as their tongues entangled wet and hot. He still tasted of wild mint and clover.

“Wait, _s'il vous plaît_ —” The older man panted.

His tongue plunged in, dragging the other out, sucking tentatively then harder when Peter began to moan. A flurry of buttons popped open. He slid a hand beneath to touch a smooth shaven chest, moving to caress a scar, slipping lower to swirl a nipple. He listened to the sounds the older man made, light panting, grunts rising high then low. He wanted more. He pinched a bud of a nipple lightly at first then twisted. A deep groan sent fingers twisting short hair as Peter thrust up. Thin legs quivered. Elias deepened the kiss, taking hands and sliding them to cotton boxers. The older man murmured French against his cheek, too low for him to make out, coasting  the curve of his neck. The older man pulled at the sweater to kiss a crescent of freckles on his chest. Long fingers curled the small of his back then circled his legs before tracing a stitched hem. He was wet and heavy between his thighs, rocking against a sternum, growing thicker.

“Touch me,” He moaned.

He wanted touch. Peter never had. To know what it felt like to slide through thick palms and be held. To know what it felt like. Would it be different than how it felt in his own hand? He slid a hand against an inner thigh then pushed up. He cupped a warm bulge outlined in delicate stitching. Peter felt big and hot. His hips bucked forward, frantic for friction. His palm clumsily worked the older man’s shaft through damp fabric.

“ _Mon_ _petit oiseau!”_ Peter shouted and flipped the boy on his back and buried a damp forehead against a chest, hands shaking near slumped shoulders _._ “I—we must stop. _”_

“Why?” A small voice pleaded, dragging the sweater up to expose a ribcage, pink tipped knees roughing legs. “There’s no one here. Please, I’m ready.”

“It has been eight years.” The older man kissed an apology on the center of a flushed chest before pulling the sweater down knees. “Barely enough time to tarnish your trinket.”

“Isn’t t-t-that enough?”

“Demanding, are you?”

Peter wrestled a mountain of pillows. He threw two to the floor before lying down on his side. Elias stared at tips of curled toes brushing cashmere covered calves, blushing bright red, hugging himself self consciously. The older man stroked a hand from cheek to neck then curled around the small of a back, moving closer.

“I did not say it was a quality I do not enjoy. You are far more forthright than I recall. You never used to tell me what you want.”

"I wasn't exactly supposed to have wants then, least of all voice them."

"Are you saying I truly led you astray?" The older man rumbled adoringly, palm slipping lower to hold the back of an ivory thigh. “God…you’re burning up. I forgot how hot you run.”

Pearly teeth bit nervously at a bottom lip, legs twisting uncomfortably. Elias glanced up, pleading, hand twitching against the curl of his stomach. He wanted to touch himself. Silvery gaze followed the tense slope of arms to quivering knees, grazing the hem of a sweater.

“Have you…” Peter inhaled slowly and then swallowed, thumb skirting where fabric met skin, husky murmur asking, “…been with anyone, Elias?”

The priest flushed deep and shook his head.

“Blessed saints. _How?”_

Rolling away, Elias curled and buried his face in a down pillow, ashamed by the ache between his legs and how much he wanted Peter to soothe it.

 _“_ You are so beautiful.”

He could feel Peter looking at him, starting from the arches of his feet and following the curve of legs, dipping at his waist, then flow over reddened ears.

“Elias.” Warm breath balmed across the back of his neck as Peter slid behind him, curling arms around his chest, long leg blanketing smaller ones shivering. “How could you remain untouched? Were you waiting for me?”

Tears bubbled up a throat. “Please don’t make fun of me.”

“How could you think such a thing? You know I always respected your wishes. I’m just surprised. You are more lovely than you know.” The older man whispered, placing an earnest kiss to a cheek. “And this. This is something I want to cherish. I wish to _know_ you. Properly this time. How a true man ought to cherish someone he loves. Slowly, patiently.”

Elias ground his head on the pillow, arms jerking protest. “You don’t want me.”

"Do I not?" Thighs then hips then a hard cock rocked the curve of thighs, warm kisses following. “How long have I wanted you, Elias? How deeply?” Peter took a trembling hand and curled it around him, breath stuttering when it squeezed his length, and kissed the nape of a neck appreciatively. “How many years have I waited? Even when I lay in bed beside you, close, just as we are now.”

“You barely touched me then. We only kissed.” The priest rolled over and buried his face, wrapping arms tight around a torso. “I want more this time. With you. Isn’t that okay? I know it's wrong. I'm sorry.”

“My love, my sweet sparrow.” Tender lips pressed to the crown of his head, sigh ruffling hair. “When are you going to understand physical attraction does not make you a sinner? It makes you a human being. Don't you think I felt guilty waking up with a priest in my bed half hard? Trying to remind myself how innocent you were and that I could not touch you. I didn't feel shame for wanting you. I just...it was not the right time."

Tears flooded wide eyes. "But you didn't touch me. And now I'm asking and you won't."

"Elias." The older man groaned. "You aren't listening to me. I want to. Can’t you feel how much?”

Snagging thumbs on a waistband, Elias tugged a silky shirt free and lifted his mouth for another kiss. A sigh trembled across his chin. He pushed a hand beneath fabric, palm sliding over a hipbone, fingertips skirting over the beginnings of scars. He wanted to touch him skin to skin. Hold him close.

“Please!” Peter cried out, torso jerking forward. “Don’t.”

The older man crushed a delicate wrist and yanked it from beneath his shirt. Elias gasped then let out a high pitched whine of pain. Pupils dilated grey eyes. Peter let go immediately, watching as the priest tucked the arm against his chest and drew away. His bottom lip trembled. He cradled his hand until the throbbing subsided. He whimpered as Peter touched his face, shame and guilt silvery blue shimmers in his gaze. Fingertips slid from his cheek. Elias stared at where their knees touched.

“S-sparrow, I’m sorry,” A hoarse murmur pressed to his ear. “Sparrow?” Peter lured the small wrist free and brought it to his mouth, tongue and mouth soothing warmth against it. “I’m sorry. It’s not your fault. I want you to touch me. I do.”

“Then why!”

“Elias, I—“ Peter threw both arms around Elias, holding tighter and tighter until he stopped thrashing. He touched a spark of tears. He rocked them, sighing against hair and closed his eyes, whispering, “I still have difficulty with being touched. I know I should be better. I want to tell you it’s different. I’m different. That part of me…the terrified man who held you close in sleep and pushed you away in daylight no longer exists. It would be a lie. I won't lie to you. I carry him with me. Carved in my skin. I cannot seem to forget him.” He winced. “It’s not you, do you understand? I need time. Will you be patient with me? Is it selfish to ask you to wait again?”

“I…I shouldn’t have touched you without permission.” Elias blinked wet eyes, fingers curled to a chest. “I didn’t mean it. I forgot how sensitive you are. Forgive me. I just really miss you. I miss touching. I want things I don't understand. I'm sorry, Peter, I'm trying.”

Strain cracked a question. “Will you wait?”

“For how long?”

“Until you tire of me.” Slender fingers tightened anxiously around a waist. “And ask.”

Elias wriggled, lying face to face with Peter and touched the side of his face. He stroked the corner of wavering grey beneath a sweep of lashes. The other man shivered and closed his eyes, struggling to catch his breath.

“Stay?” He asked softly. “Will you please stay?”

The older man pushed delicate fingertips to his mouth. When his eyes opened again they were filled with tears of relief.

“Forever, little one. Or for as long as you’ll have me…” Peter sobbed, cradling Elias, and wrapped both hands protectively around his small frame. “Close your eyes. Lie here with me awhile longer. I want to remember what it’s like to hold you.”

 

* * *

“Do you think its safe for me to go back in to my own house?” Glinting blue slid from a tangerine sunset and to the side.

Caramel warmed slipping to stare at a perturbed frown, swollen and chaffed. “Perhaps. Or I could continue kissing your mouth.”

“I can’t feel my lips as it is.” Will stood, stretching, jumping as fingertips chased after the hitch of a thin Henley shirt.

“You were the one who was bored. I merely provided entertainment.” Fingertips drifted down his backside and Hannibal glanced up with a smirk, squeezing his ass through a pair of jeans. “How about other parts of you? I wonder if you can feel those?”

The younger man rolled his eyes and swatted at hands, well aware of how hot and uncomfortable his cock pressed against seams. “It’s too damn cold to do anything other than go inside.”

“Are you certain?”

“I had bark burn for weeks the last time. No. Or…dammit. YES. Yes, I am certain. Certain the answer is fucking no.”

“Fucking no? Or is just fucking of any kind out of the question?”

He stared at the sky praying for patience as he walked, muttering, “Thank Christ we don’t have neighbors. You are impossible.”

Aromatic laughter of rust leaves and firewood wrapped around him. Hannibal trotted after, ensnaring a hand, before pulling Will close. “Can I persuade you?”

“No.” He molded against a firm chest, shivering, swinging hands around a neck, his body giving an entirely different reply. “Have you forgotten all about your precious ceremony of preparing dinner? Have you forgotten about dinner? Because Hannibal, if you have, I think this is serious and something we need to discuss immediately.”

Hannibal considered the question, brow quirked, then peeled out of a thick red sweater. He lifted the younger man’s arms and tugged it over a head, kissing each playful curl as it appeared, and then pecked a chilled mouth. Will arched a brow of his own, swimming in folds of fabric and heat. He placed a palm over a thicket of graying curls on a broad chest. He bit his lip. Hannibal was always hot to touch, hotter still against the chilling breeze, gazing down at him with pure affection. A cold nose drew across his chest, nuzzling affectionately before Will could avoid the blatant trap. Not that he wanted to.

“I thought you were the main course, William.”

He shook his head, even as a smile split across his face. It hurt too much to smile after forty five minutes of making out. His lips were chapped. He was grinning by the time they reached the front stoop, darting out of the way of an eager mouth and pawing hands.

He laughed into silvery hair as Hannibal flattened him to the front door. “We have to go in, baby, or you’ll get frost bite.”

“It’s hardly cold enough.” Teeth pricked his throat in a grin, hand sliding to palm him through jeans. “I think the risk outweighs the reward in any case, dearest one.”

“What’s gotten in to you?” Will groaned.

He laughed harder when Hannibal picked him up, wrapped both legs around his waist, and banged them both on an interior wall of the foyer. The door rattled closed with a kick.

He gripped strong shoulders, purring when the older man began to grind against him with a throaty whisper, “Young love is often a stimulating reminder of what little time we have on this earth. To give us pause to consider how we would like to spend it. And with whom.”

“Oh yeah?” Will sucked a hickey on Hannibal’s neck, grinning at the way he shivered. “I think you’ll just find any excuse to get in my pants, Doctor.”

“Then take them off already.” The older man placed him on feet, sliding a hand over a waist, tongue flicking his mouth. “But leave the sweater. The aesthetics of fabric on your body gives me pleasure.”

The younger man followed a hungry gaze and dragged a tongue across his mouth knowingly, voice dropping to a hushed whisper, “You only like it because then I smell only of you. And it reminds you of blood.”

Hannibal stepped forward, growling. Will placed a hand on his chest and shook his head. Amusement crinkled the corners of his mouth. Bed springs creaked above them. He nodded towards the stairs before trailing up them.

A hand caught his. “We ought to leave them alone, William.”

“I just…” Blue lifted to flickering light beneath a doorway. “…want to know Elias is safe.”

Hannibal pushed passed, holding his hand, and drew them both quietly up stairs, whispering, “And when he is? Will you be able to let go of your own fears?”

“That isn’t fair. I worry.” Will made a face. “And Elias is small. And he’s…”

_Sort of like a puppy._

Maroon eyes glanced back him expectantly for a more verifiable and meaningful reason. Will did not have one. He sulked. They stopped in the hall. It was silent.

“I know you worry,” The older man listened for a moment before giving the door a light push. “I am trying to put you at ease.”

Through the narrow frame of view, candlelight flickered over two figures curled against one another on the bed fast asleep. Peter was resting with his face in the curve of a shoulder, holding tight to a frail chest, eyes moving rapidly in dream. There was a hint of a smile as thin fingers squeezed his hands. Elias sighed content on a wrist, rustling closer, slender bare legs trapped by longer ones. A pale sweater twisted up his torso to reveal the glimmer of a cross.

With a sigh and heavy heart, Will stepped quietly in and lifted a cashmere blanket from a vanity table.

_It was in your room all along, sparrow. Right where you left it._

He stood at the foot of the bed. He supposed this would be the last time he would tuck Elias in. His gaze strayed to Peter.

_He’s yours now. You take care of him. But don’t think that means we aren’t going to talk, hear me? You break his heart, I’ll cut out yours._

He laid the blanket gingerly over the young men entwined on the bed. He lightly pushed sandy hair out of drooping eyes. He placed a protective kiss on Elias’ forehead. Then blew out the candles. A singe of earthy smoke and vanilla followed him out of the room.

He fell gratefully in open arms, letting Hannibal hold up his entire weight, tears sliding over skin. The older man kissed his temple, rocking him gently to an unhurried rhythm. The thrum of his heart.

“Are you going to be okay, William? Is there anything I can do to ease your pain?”

“It’s not that.” Shaking his head, Will squeezed a waist gratefully. “I want Elias to be happy. For them both to be happy…” He choked on a whisper, hands fluttering. “Promise me we’ll look after them. Promise me, Hannibal.”

Hannibal stroked his hair, lifting him slightly off his feet, and murmured, “You are family, Will. I will look after whomever you entrust in your care. They will become mine. I promise to keep us safe.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all enjoyed this brief interlude from EB. (I did! I'd like to write these two more. It's a nice change of pace. Would you enjoy reading them?) I'll start working through the other time stamp prompts now. 
> 
> I drew you a pretty picture~at least, this is what they look like to me. I'd love to see your versions of Peter and Elias.  
> (http://hallofmybeginnings.tumblr.com/post/157944469919/oc-doodles-elias-svendsen-peter-moreau)

**Author's Note:**

> I can't remember which one of you, dear friends, asked for the timestamp of how Elias and Peter reunited. I'm sure this is not what you were expecting~it got away from me! (If you remind me, I'll gift it to you. xo. ~Since you love these two idiots as much as I do, Bloody Princess, this one is for you.)
> 
> Run x Daughter
> 
> And if I try to get close  
> He is already gone  
> I don't know where he's going  
> I don't know where he's been  
> But he is restless at night  
> Cause he has horrible dreams  
> So we lay in the dark  
> Cause we've got nothing to say  
> Just the beating of hearts  
> Like two drums in the gray


End file.
